Apr 08, 2023
It is a little puzzler this time. A non-automotive, short little puzzler.
We went over to our Mom's house years ago and there was a pretty good crowd. I think there were like eight of us. A bunch of family members.
There were eight of us and Mom had baked a carrot cake. And it was a rectangular shape, like a carrot cake brick. And because there were eight of us we had to cut the carrot cake into eight pieces, right?
So, Dad says he can cut the carrot brick cake into eight pieces, no problem. And then one of the kids says, "Hey, wait a minute, Gramps. You can do that with fewer than four cuts."
And Dad says. "I can?? Show me how." And he did. Three cuts.
So, how did he do it? How can you cut a brick of cake into eight equal pieces with three cuts only, three slices of a knife?
Good luck.
Okay answer time.
We have a brick of carrot cake, made by my mom. It is a nice pretty rectangle shape, a brick of carrot cake.
There are 8 people there. So my dad says he can cut it into 8 equal pieces. And one of the kids says, "You know, you can do that with less than 4 cuts. Using only 3 cuts, we can have 8 equal pieces."
So how does he do it?
You have to look at it differently, to get the right answer. Not the way you might normally cut a cake. You have to think three dimensionally.
So, you take the brick of cake and you cut it clean in half, right down the middle.
Then, you cut it right in half the other way, from top to bottom, perpendicular. So, that is two cuts, and 4 equal pieces, right?
Then, you take the knife and hold it parallel to the table, and cut the entire brick in half, that way. Clean across the whole thing, And then you will have 4 equal pieces on the top layer and 4 on the bottom layer.
You just have to think about things three dimensionally.
