Good algorithm for combining items from N lists into one with balanced distribution?

Question

Let\'s say I have the three following lists

A1
A2
A3

B1
B2

C1
C2
C3
C4
C5

I\'d like to combine them into a si

Answer 1

Implementation of Andrew Rollings' answer:

public List equimix(List> input) {

  // sort biggest list to smallest list
  Collections.sort(input, new Comparator>() {
     public int compare(List a1, List a2) {
        return a2.size() - a1.size();
     }
  });

  List output = input.get(0);

  for (int i = 1; i < input.size(); i++) {
     output = equimix(output, input.get(i));
  }

  return output;
}

public List equimix(List listA, List listB) {

  if (listB.size() > listA.size()) {
     List temp;
     temp = listB;
     listB = listA;
     listA = temp;
  }

  List output = listA;

  double shiftCoeff = (double) listA.size() / listB.size();
  double floatCounter = shiftCoeff;

  for (String item : listB) {
     int insertionIndex = (int) Math.round(floatCounter);
     output.add(insertionIndex, item);
     floatCounter += (1+shiftCoeff);
  }

  return output;
}