The genome aliquoting problem is, given an observed genome A with n copies of each gene, presumed to descend from an n-way polyploidization event from an ordinary diploid genome B, followed by a history of chromosomal rearrangements, to reconstruct the identity of the original genome B. The idea is to construct B, containing exactly one copy of each gene, so as to minimize the number of rearrangements d(A, B plus sign in circle B plus sign in circle ... plus sign in circle B) necessary to convert the observed genome B plus sign in circle B plus sign in circle ... plus sign in circle B into A.