Mar 23, 2024
This one is familiar... We may have used it in the past. Or a similar one... So we will change it up a bit.
Years ago, we had a party for our Ma. We decided to have a big celebration for her. So, we baked a cake.
There were 5 of us at this celebration. The cake we made was a perfect square. It was 10 inches on each side, and a fewa inches high. We frosted this cake across the top and the four 10 inch sides.
And the question is, how would you cut this cake so that each and every one of the five people at the party would get a piece that had not only the same volume, but the same amount of frosting?
Good luck.
Okay answer time. We got a square cake, frosting across the sides and the top, and 5 people.
How do you cut it into 5 equal pieces, that also have the same amount of frosting?
So here is what you do.
You have to find the exact midpoint of the cake, right in the center of the square. Then you take the perimeter of the cake, which was 40 inches and divided it by five.
So knowing this, you start off at one corner and mark off 8 inches, leaving a piece that is 2 inches long. Remember, each side is 10 inches. And you keep doing that until you have marked off five equal segments on the perimeter of the cake. Then you draw lines from the center of the cake to each of those marked off positions.
And if you do this, you get pieces which don't look alike at all. But all these weird shaped pieces will have the same area. And if you calculate the volume, which is height times area, you get the same volume.
Tricky one.
