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Piece o' Cake (Posted on 2003-12-04) Difficulty: 3 of 5
I was sitting down with Stefanie one day to share a round cake (our birthdays are only two weeks apart). "This is easy enough," I said, "one cut right through the middle divides the cake into two equal pieces."

Then, two more people showed up, but I was undaunted. Two straight cuts will divide the cake into four equal parts, I thought.

Then, I saw another car pulling up. I remembered that three straight lines can divide a circle into at most seven parts, but I was unsure if that could be done so that all the pieces are equal (in volume, not necessarily in shape).

How can I use three straight cuts to divide our cake into all equal parts and accomodate the greatest number of people?

Note: since Stefanie spent so much time decorating the cake, I don't want to rearrange the pieces when I cut them.

See The Solution Submitted by DJ    
Rating: 3.6667 (9 votes)

Comments: ( Back to comment list | You must be logged in to post comments.)
Short and sweet | Comment 21 of 22 |
Two straight cuts perpendicular to each other and the third one horizontally. This would give eight equal pieces.
  Posted by Sandeep on 2004-11-28 09:25:55
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