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You're Not Maximizing the Amount of Gastronomic Pleasure

In a Numberphile video, author Alex Bellos demonstrates the cake cutting technique mathematician Sir Francis Galton advocated in a 1906 letter to Nature.

"The ordinary way of cutting out a wedge is very faulty," Galton told readers of Nature, since the cake it leaves exposed will dry out over the days it takes to finish the dessert. Galton proposed an alternate method that involves taking long, thin slices from the cake's center (and then pressing the remainder together to avoid air exposure).

Watch Bellos show how it's done.

Start Date: 
Tuesday, July 15, 2014