If you've been cutting cake into triangles, you've been doing it wrong
It's hip to be rectangle - at least when it comes to cutting cakes.
Although you probably spent your formative years watching your parents slice your birthday cake into triangles, mathematician and writer Alex Bellos is here to tell you that's not the way to do it.
Bellos is featured in a YouTube video produced by Numberphile (Brady Haran) demonstrating why cake should be cut into rectangles.
Bellos cites a letter to the editor in a December 1906 issue of scientific magazine Nature as the source of this revolutionary idea.
This "scientific" method is supposed to keep the cake fresher for longer.
Here's how it works:
1. Cut the cake in half.
2. Make another cut next to the first one, also straight down the middle, to create a rectangle.
3. Remove the rectangle you just created.
4. Push the remaining two halves of the cake back together.
5. Place a rubber band around the cake and make another cut down the middle, cutting the cake into fourths.
6. Make another cut next to the one you just made to create a rectangle again. The resulting rectangle slice will have two pieces.
7. Repeat this process until you end up with a plate full of rectangle slices.
The best part about this method, however, is that pushing the remaining halves together means that the leftover cake stays fresh for longer, as it wont dry out from the middle.
Here's the entire video:
- I got a $40K raise using this 30-second strategy. It made me realize loud work, not hard work, always wins.
- Qatar Airways' new CEO explains why it's sticking with the Airbus A380 as other airlines retire the costly superjumbo
- Prince Harry and Meghan found out about Kate Middleton's cancer diagnosis on TV like everyone else, report says
- Consuming excessive salt and inadequate potassium, protein is making North Indians prone to life-threatening diseases: Study
- Upcoming cars and two-wheelers launching in India in April 2024
- Ice melt in Antarctica and Greenland is slowing Earth's rotation, affecting timekeeping: Study
- Elections on a plate: Poll panels fix menu & expense ceiling for Samosa, tea, biryani & more
- Regenerative farming, cover crops will help farmers increase yields, reduce stubble burning: IDH CEO