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The Perfect Way To Slice a Pizza

iamapizza writes "New Scientist reports on the quest of two math boffins for the perfect way to slice a pizza. It's an interesting and in-depth article; 'The problem that bothered them was this. Suppose the harried waiter cuts the pizza off-center, but with all the edge-to-edge cuts crossing at a single point, and with the same angle between adjacent cuts. The off-center cuts mean the slices will not all be the same size, so if two people take turns to take neighboring slices, will they get equal shares by the time they have gone right round the pizza — and if not, who will get more?' This is useful, of course, if you're familiar with the concept of 'sharing' a pizza."

39 of 282 comments (clear)

  1. Unsure. by Hillview · · Score: 5, Funny

    My biggest pizza cutting dilemma happened just the other day. I wasn't sure I could eat six pieces, so I cut it into four.

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    1. Re:Unsure. by SomeoneGotMyNick · · Score: 5, Funny

      A standard pizza is usually cut in 8 pieces. Who cuts it into 6?

      It was a Metric pizza

    2. Re:Unsure. by Ruede · · Score: 2, Insightful

      a standard grocery store pizza is too small for adequate sized 1/8th slices.

    3. Re:Unsure. by von_rick · · Score: 4, Funny

      Could be a group of 1.5 people as well.

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    4. Re:Unsure. by crazypip666 · · Score: 5, Funny

      A metric pizza should have ten slices.

    5. Re:Unsure. by sconeu · · Score: 2, Informative

      Mod parent +1, Yogi Berra.

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    6. Re:Unsure. by Whalou · · Score: 2, Funny

      .5...

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    7. Re:Unsure. by CecilPL · · Score: 5, Funny

      This thread is going nowhere.

    8. Re:Unsure. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      I used to cringe every time my ex-girlfriend ordered a pizza, because instead of asking "What's the diameter of your large pizza?" or even just "How big is the large?", she would always ask "How many slices is that?"

      It took everything I had not to blurt out profane insults about her intelligence. But somehow I always managed to keep my composure and say calmly "Don't ask that. Ask them what the diameter is."

      Thankfully, my wife is a lot smarter than my ex, so I don't get those sudden surges in my blood pressure anymore.

    9. Re:Unsure. by FlyingBishop · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Not necessarily. A metric pizza would have a circumference of 1 meter, and therefore have a diameter of roughly 30 cm. With a diameter of 100/pi, you would have a radius of 50/pi, and an area of 10,000/pi cm2. Dividing that up into six slices would give you a little over 500cm2 per person, which is about as round a number as one might expect. 10 slices gives 300 cm2, which is in no way metric.

    10. Re:Unsure. by CAPSLOCK2000 · · Score: 2, Funny

      Where I live it the local pie (called Vlaai) is traditionally cut into 10 slices.
      Being able to so qualifies you as a local, although some smart soul created a cutting template and later on a round knife that will just cut all slices in one cut.

    11. Re:Unsure. by Vainglorious+Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      A metric pizza would have a circumference of 1 meter

      More likely metric would follow the pattern of paper sizing, so an A0 pizza would have an area of 1 square meter (for a diameter of ~ 113cm), an A1 pizza would be 0.5 square meters (diameter 80cm), A2 would have half that area and so on. A typical pizza would be A4 : an area of one sixteenth of a square meter, so a diameter of close to 30 cm.

      Then there's the B series, which works in the same way, but starting from B0 having an area of 0.5 square meters, and with the inclusion of anchovys.

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    12. Re:Unsure. by icannotthinkofaname · · Score: 2, Informative

      A metric pizza would have a circumference of 1 meter

      Fine, then.

      With a diameter of 100/pi

      Okay...

      you would have a radius of 50/pi

      So far, so good...

      an area of 10,000/pi cm2.

      What? Re-check your math. r = 50/pi, and so r^2 = 62500/(pi^2). Therefore, the area is 62,500/pi cm ^2

      After that, I have no idea how you got your area-per-person numbers, so I don't know how wrong they are.

      Unrelated: the volume of a pizza of radius z and thickness a is pi*z*z*a

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    13. Re:Unsure. by dov_0 · · Score: 2

      In the UK, Australia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, and I presume in Canada, it is Metre. Strangely enough it also appears to be metre in France, the country which gave us the Metre. Meter on the other hand is a verb. That leaves the US out of the English speaking nations as the only one that got the verb and noun mixed up and screwed the English language for the rest of us.

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    14. Re:Unsure. by Obfuscant · · Score: 2, Informative
      I used to cringe every time my ex-girlfriend ordered a pizza, because instead of asking "What's the diameter of your large pizza?" or even just "How big is the large?", she would always ask "How many slices is that?" It took everything I had not to blurt out profane insults about her intelligence.

      She's actually smarter than you, socially.

      She knew if she was ordering for three, a multiple-of-three slices would give each person the same amount. That's fair if you are sharing. If ordering for four, a multiple of four. If two, an even number.

      Maybe she was even more advanced than that, knowing that "Joe will probably want two, Tom probably will only eat one, Marcia another one, and my pig-assed boyfriend will suck down four slices, no matter how big or small they are. I will make do with one, so that's 9 slices..."

      She knew "screw the size of each piece", what mattered was the subjective fairness of the division of the pie.

    15. Re:Unsure. by dragonjujotu · · Score: 2, Informative

      Congratulations, you didn't do any better...

      50 * 50 = 2500

      So it's 2500/pi cm^2. And if each person gets 1/10, that's 250/pi cm^2, or about 79.6 cm^2.

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  2. The results are less interesting by Opportunist · · Score: 3, Interesting

    than the story that led to the project, I bet.

    Shows you that even geeks have parties sometimes. We just have different topics between the question who pays for the pizza and who gets the last slice.

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  3. Maybe by BeanThere · · Score: 4, Insightful

    a slightly foreign concept here, but usually the woman/women get(s) the smaller pieces and everyone's happy. Simple.

    1. Re:Maybe by Nadaka · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I am 6ft tall. My fiance is 4ft 9in and about half my weight. If I ate as little as she did, I would starve. If she ate as much as I did, she would pop. There is nothing misogynistic about it, women are on average smaller than men, they will eat less.

    2. Re:Maybe by maxume · · Score: 2, Funny

      Maybe she likes her some pizza.

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    3. Re:Maybe by LanMan04 · · Score: 2, Funny

      The mechanics must be.....interesting. :)

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  4. Re:Limewire by AndrewNeo · · Score: 4, Funny

    "You wouldn't copy a pizza, would you?"

  5. Tricks from insiders by Just+Some+Guy · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I worked at a couple of pizza places when I was in high school. There are actually two perfect ways to slice a pizza:

    1. On a large pizza, make two parallel cuts maybe 3/4" apart on either side of the midline. Set the long, skinny slice aside. The pizza will still appear round, within normal limits of eccentricity. Continue slicing as normal, box it, and send it. Eat the long, skinny slice. Repeat until you are no longer hungry.
    2. Starting slicing from the center of the pizza and working outward. Eyeball it (which you should be pretty good at, since you've sliced thousands of pizzas and you're well-fed for the evening) and carve the pie into 11 or 13 slices. Wonder later if people are still trying to figure out where the extra slice came from, or which greedy SOB ate one piece more than they should have.
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    1. Re:Tricks from insiders by Dread_ed · · Score: 4, Interesting

      For some reason the assumption is that everyone wants the same size slice of pizza. I disagree. I prefer a pizza with a variety of slice sizes.

      For instance, large slices are good for large appetites/people (men), while medium and small slices are good for smaller appetitets/people(women and children). Also, the small ones are a perfect finisher when you have just consumed a number of large slices and are just about to bust.

      Also, the slice porportion and their accompanying aesthetics are important. Somedays the fat-looking big slices that are almost a fourth of the pizza look best. Other times the skinny ones that are so slim they can't even legitamately accommodate an intact piece of pepperoni appeal to me. Proportion can weigh as heavily as quantity and distribution of toppings when it comes to choosing the perfect slice.

      Personally, I would be interested in a cutting pattern that guaranteed the most variety of slice sizes.

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  6. 4 whole pieces? by NoPantsJim · · Score: 5, Funny

    I prefer to roll mine into a giant tube, thus consuming only one piece.

    Also, when people ask what I had for breakfast, I can respond with "A wrap"

    1. Re:4 whole pieces? by Beardo+the+Bearded · · Score: 5, Informative

      Thanks, that's the best laugh of the day. I've ordered $180 worth of pizza for dinner tonight (it's a dinner meeting for 35 people) and I was thinking about someone rolling these 18", 2" deep jumbos into a wrap.

      Someone on /. has a sig that said:

      A pizza with depth a and radius z has a volume of pi z z a.

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  7. Re:Wait, what? by tacarat · · Score: 2, Funny

    Only if you're willing to cut the cheese.

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  8. Re:My Esperiement by Opportunist · · Score: 2, Insightful

    That's no evidence. You have to take various factors into account like your current filling state, heat of the pizza on arrival and so forth. If you cannot standardize those parameters, you at the very least have to repeat the experiment a few hundred times to at least claim something resembling scientific value.

    You'll prolly die of arteriosclerosis, but it was for science!

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  9. 11 by hoggoth · · Score: 4, Funny

    I always maximize my pizza by cutting it into 11 pieces. That way I get much more pizza than most people. I get 11 slices.

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  10. Re:WTF by Eravau · · Score: 2, Informative

    Because it's not really about the pizza so much as the quest for a mathematical proof of who gets more depending on how the pizza is sliced.

  11. Multidimensional Pizza by Otto · · Score: 3, Funny

    Okay, so a three dimensional pizza would be a calzone, but what would a four-dimensional pizza look like?

    More importantly, on a four-dimensional pizza, can you fill the crust with cheese?

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  12. Re:Divide it first by corbettw · · Score: 2, Insightful

    This is an easy problem: have one person cut the pizza, and have the other divide the slices. That's about the easiest way in the world to make sure that the division is honest and fair.

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  13. Even-slice pizza cutter by RawJoe · · Score: 2, Informative

    I've seen something like this used at the Costco cafe. Seems to work easier than doing math.

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  14. Cut it into 5... by AliasMarlowe · · Score: 2, Interesting

    ...equal pieces, for a potentially amusing drunkard's challenge.
    Cutting the pizza into 10 and combining slices is considered ungentlemanly behavior (i.e. cheating) in this particular sport.

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  15. Back in the day... by LynnwoodRooster · · Score: 4, Funny

    when I worked at Godfather's Pizza, I finally "graduated" to cut table. The guy to cut the pizzas and call out the orders. I used to enjoy having fun sometimes when a pair of semi-buzzed guys would come in and order a pizza. Cut the pizza into 9 pieces with the roller, rather than the rocker, and watch them get upset over who gets the last piece! Ah, fun times as a teenager...

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  16. Re:Divide it first by Rockoon · · Score: 2, Funny

    I tell my grandfather with Parkinson's that all the time. "You make the cuts, and then I pick the pieces. Its the only way its fair!"

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  17. Irrelevant by interploy · · Score: 2, Insightful

    This isn't a problem in America. We each just get one to ourselves.

  18. Physicist Pizza by LanMan04 · · Score: 4, Funny

    Are we talking perfectly round, frictionless pizzas?

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  19. Re:Triangles or Squares? by DynaSoar · · Score: 2, Funny

    I like my pizza cut in 8 nice triangular slices. My wife likes squares. I actually cut half in slices, and half in squares.

    I like triangles, but I cut it into 6 instead. I can't eat 8 pieces.

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