Healthy Eating

You’ve been cutting pizza wrong your entire life

StanleyBy

1458897284-7166-pizza1

How many slices can you get out of a 12-inch pizza?

A generous 12? An expansive 16?

Joel Haddley and Stephen Worsley laugh at your meagre efforts.

The mathematicians of the University of Liverpool have developed a ‘new’ technique for slicing your favourite Italian dish that can produce as many as 20, 28 or even 36 slices.

1458897285-1903-pizza
1458897285-8674-pizza2
The technique consists of twisting a principal of ‘monohedral disc tiling’ – a geometric description of the sort of shape that a regularly-cut pizza will take.

The mathematicians set out to see if they could construct monohedral tiles with a ‘trivial intersection’, breaking the usual pattern of two flat edges and an arch. Basically, by cutting the pizza into a “wobbly star” (the technical term), you’re able to produce a variety of shapes to spread a pizza further than before.

1458897285-5540-pizza4
1458897285-4485-pizza3
1458897287-7237-pizza5
Sure, some people might pick up far more crust than they bargained for, but it’s an interesting alternative to breaking up one large pizza into those unwieldy thin buffet-sized slices. Or you could just order one for yourself and avoid the whole exercise.

To find out more about the maths that’s being employed here, you can read Haddley and Worsle’s paper here.

You may also like

Comments

Leave a reply