:nerd: or just smart decision making? (1 Viewer)

[Ministry of Pain]

While I know that MoP was wrong, please explain this to me like I have a History degree. TIA.

If you follow the advice of MOP you're a Nazi. If we're going to talk history someone has to invoke Nazis. It just has to happen. I wanted to be first.

 

[Ministry of Pain]

You guys are TOTALLY WRONG. If you order the two pizzas you are getting screwed with more dough and less cheese and toppings. pwned.

I like this guy's answer

 

[Ministry of Pain]

2 x 12" is 24" of pizza for $14.99

1 x 16" pizza for 9.99. I think they are about equal. except you get the bread with the other pizza. 2 for deal sounds better but hey don't trust a Cane bra'

I hope to God you're kidding.

What is there to explain?24 divided by 14.99 on my calculator is 1.6

16 divided by 9.99 on my calculator is 1.6

Seem to be about equal except you get bread with the 2 for 1 deal...now who has the bad math here?

I'm setting my fantasy lineup based on this guy's math

Blow it out your Yoda. You can mock all you want Otis, it only sinks you further.

Is DeAngelo still taking over this season?

 

[Otis]

Blow it out your Yoda. You can mock all you want Otis, it only sinks you further. Is DeAngelo still taking over this season?

 

[B-Deep]

So I am calling Domino's to take home a pizza and some cheesy sticks (wife is going out with some girl friends so it is me, my son, and my 2 daughters that have strep throat tonight). They tell me their specials, of which one is 2 medium 1-toppings and a bread for $14.99. They also have their XLP 1-topping for $9.99, with cheese sticks being $3.99.

So the in me immediately asks for the diameter of each pizza, I do a little pi X radius squared and figure out the most pizza per buck spent.

And no, there are not ANY good mom and pop pizza joints within 10 miles of where I live, so spare the "Good pizza down" comments.

I'm sure it will surprise nobody that I've taken this -iness to a whole different level.I had a spreadsheet going with cost of pizza per square inch for pizzas of various sizes given 1, 2, 3, and 4 toppings -- since toppings are priced differently for small, medium, and large pizzas.

For example, even though the base-cost of the pizza is less for a large than for a small (in terms of dollars per square inch), each additional topping was actually more expensive (per square inch) for a large. There are in fact many complications (standard toppings versus premium toppings, etc). You really need a thorough spreadsheet to take them all into account.

MTwhen can i expect the Pizza Dominator application?

 

[shuke]

Blow it out your Yoda.

 

[Ministry of Pain]

Blow it out your Yoda. You can mock all you want Otis, it only sinks you further. Is DeAngelo still taking over this season?

Had to change avatars after that one, did you?

 

[Ministry of Pain]

Blow it out your Yoda.

I made Shuke chuckle, I better write this down...even if he is laughing at me.

 

[Drifter]

BTW that Pizza Hut lasagna pizza is pretty tasty. I scoffed at it when I first saw it on TV but it's mmm mmm good.

 

[BGP]

It depends if the sausage came in hand or in the pie.

 

[KnowledgeReignsSupreme]

2 x 12" is 24" of pizza for $14.99

1 x 16" pizza for 9.99. I think they are about equal. except you get the bread with the other pizza. 2 for deal sounds better but hey don't trust a Cane bra'

I hope to God you're kidding.

What is there to explain?24 divided by 14.99 on my calculator is 1.6

16 divided by 9.99 on my calculator is 1.6

Seem to be about equal except you get bread with the 2 for 1 deal...now who has the bad math here?

hint: You don't get a straight line of pizza. It comes in a circle.

 

[shuke]

It depends if the sausage came in hand or in the pie.

Wow.

 

[Tick]

2 x 12" is 24" of pizza for $14.99

1 x 16" pizza for 9.99. I think they are about equal. except you get the bread with the other pizza. 2 for deal sounds better but hey don't trust a Cane bra'

I hope to God you're kidding.

What is there to explain?24 divided by 14.99 on my calculator is 1.6

16 divided by 9.99 on my calculator is 1.6

Seem to be about equal except you get bread with the 2 for 1 deal...now who has the bad math here?

hint: You don't get a straight line of pizza. It comes in a circle.

 

[blenderfrog]

2 x 12" is 24" of pizza for $14.99

1 x 16" pizza for 9.99. I think they are about equal. except you get the bread with the other pizza. 2 for deal sounds better but hey don't trust a Cane bra'

I hope to God you're kidding.

What is there to explain?24 divided by 14.99 on my calculator is 1.6

16 divided by 9.99 on my calculator is 1.6

Seem to be about equal except you get bread with the 2 for 1 deal...now who has the bad math here?

hint: You don't get a straight line of pizza. It comes in a circle.

I have to say, that is one of the best FFA lines of all time!

 

[Mr. Pickles]

Nipper..

 

[Otis]

 

[Hipple Long Ware & Peete]

So I am calling Domino's to take home a pizza and some cheesy sticks (wife is going out with some girl friends so it is me, my son, and my 2 daughters that have strep throat tonight). They tell me their specials, of which one is 2 medium 1-toppings and a bread for $14.99. They also have their XLP 1-topping for $9.99, with cheese sticks being $3.99.

So the in me immediately asks for the diameter of each pizza, I do a little pi X radius squared and figure out the most pizza per buck spent.

And no, there are not ANY good mom and pop pizza joints within 10 miles of where I live, so spare the "Good pizza down" comments.

2 x 12" is 24" of pizza for $14.991 x 16" pizza for 9.99. I think they are about equal. except you get the bread with the other pizza. 2 for deal sounds better but hey don't trust a Cane bra'

 

[quotheraven]

Wow, some people take their pizza way too seriously. I mean it's not like we're talking about something important, like beer.

 

[popeye]

I'm going to need to know if it were thin slice or deep dish.

:important:

Always get the thin crust. Always. Chicago can bite my ###.

 

[Shutterbug]

While I know that MoP was wrong, please explain this to me like I have a History degree. TIA.

We're interested in the area of a pizza that is, for our purposes, two-dimensional and circular.The area of a circular pizza is proportional to the square of its radius. Pizza sizes are stated in terms of their diameters.So a 12-inch pizza is 56% as big as a 16-inch pizza. (6^2) / (8^2) = 56.25%Therefore, if the 12-incher costs more than 56% as much as the 16-incher, the 16-incher is the better deal.

Once again for those in the back of the room...HISTORY DEGREE. I wrote and I read. The last time I worked with numbers in parentheses, there was a letterman's jacket involved. And I never even did my homework. I flunked Algebra II...as a senior. The only reason I graduated from college without taking a math class was because of a glitch somewhere along the line...I literally should not have my college degree right now.So in the original question, which is the better deal?Thanks. I didn't mean to get testy, but sometimes I drink.

 

[Ned]

wow - isnt mop some financial lender?

 

[Tick]

I was laughing at Otis's sig just yesterday.

 

[seahawk 17]

I just want to know how much of a tip you gave the pizza guy.

 

[tommyboy]

funniest thread in awhile...

gb FBG math geniuses!

 

[General Malaise]

god i hate math.

 

[phrozen]

gb this thread

 

[Rhino]

I don't know how I missed this gem the first time around, but this is classic. I swear I'm using that line at work tomorrow...

"I know there's a big trig equation here, but I just want to get this tower built..."

 

[Mad Cow]

Can't let this baby get purged.

 

[TommyGilmore]

So this is what it means when he says that he "almost went MoP on someone".

"I almost went mathtarded on someone".

 

[Otis]

2 x 12" is 24" of pizza for $14.99

1 x 16" pizza for 9.99. I think they are about equal. except you get the bread with the other pizza. 2 for deal sounds better but hey don't trust a Cane bra'

I hope to God you're kidding.

What is there to explain?24 divided by 14.99 on my calculator is 1.6

16 divided by 9.99 on my calculator is 1.6

Seem to be about equal except you get bread with the 2 for 1 deal...now who has the bad math here?

hint: You don't get a straight line of pizza. It comes in a circle.

Honestly one of the best exchanges of all time in the FFA.

 

[rodg12]

2 x 12" is 24" of pizza for $14.99

1 x 16" pizza for 9.99. I think they are about equal. except you get the bread with the other pizza. 2 for deal sounds better but hey don't trust a Cane bra'

I hope to God you're kidding.

What is there to explain?24 divided by 14.99 on my calculator is 1.6

16 divided by 9.99 on my calculator is 1.6

Seem to be about equal except you get bread with the 2 for 1 deal...now who has the bad math here?

hint: You don't get a straight line of pizza. It comes in a circle.

Honestly one of the best exchanges of all time in the FFA.

I laughed so hard I started getting strange looks from the people in nearby cubes (even more so than normal).

 

[Mr. Brownstone]

Love this thread. Good

 

[Mad Cow]

So this is what it means when he says that he "almost went MoP on someone".

"I almost went mathtarded on someone".

No, going MoP on someone is throwing a fit and tossing a hundred pennies all over the floor.

 

[videoguy505]

So this is what it means when he says that he "almost went MoP on someone".

"I almost went mathtarded on someone".

No, going MoP on someone is throwing a fit and tossing a hundred pennies all over the floor.

Usually set off by someone opening a can of tuna in the same room.

 

[FatMax]

It doesn't matter what Pi is. It might as well be 384.

Another great line that deserves some love.

 

[Aaron Rudnicki]

but hey don't trust a Cane bra'

 

[Ministry of Pain]

but hey don't trust a Cane bra'

Classes start tomorrow...believe it or not I got an A in Algebra, Trig, and Calculus...go figure

 

[Ned]

2 x 12" is 24" of pizza for $14.99

1 x 16" pizza for 9.99. I think they are about equal. except you get the bread with the other pizza. 2 for deal sounds better but hey don't trust a Cane bra'

I hope to God you're kidding.

What is there to explain?24 divided by 14.99 on my calculator is 1.6

16 divided by 9.99 on my calculator is 1.6

Seem to be about equal except you get bread with the 2 for 1 deal...now who has the bad math here?

hint: You don't get a straight line of pizza. It comes in a circle.

I have to say, that is one of the best FFA lines of all time!

still 2+ yrs later.

 

[KnowledgeReignsSupreme]

A+ on the bump. This can never be allowed to be purged.

 

[Disco Stu]

but hey don't trust a Cane bra'

Classes start tomorrow...believe it or not I got an A in Algebra, Trig, and Calculus...go figure

Unpossible.

 

[KnowledgeReignsSupreme]

Why do people waste their pizza money buying one-topping pizzas?

I usually only get pepperoni. Sometimes pepperoni and sausage. You can only have so many toppings before you ruin it.

 

[SofaKings]

2 x 12" is 24" of pizza for $14.99

1 x 16" pizza for 9.99. I think they are about equal. except you get the bread with the other pizza. 2 for deal sounds better but hey don't trust a Cane bra'

I hope to God you're kidding.

What is there to explain?24 divided by 14.99 on my calculator is 1.6

16 divided by 9.99 on my calculator is 1.6

Seem to be about equal except you get bread with the 2 for 1 deal...now who has the bad math here?

hint: You don't get a straight line of pizza. It comes in a circle.

Honestly one of the best exchanges of all time in the FFA.

I'm so pissed I missed this the first go around. Shick's head must have exploded.

 

[SofaKings]

but hey don't trust a Cane bra'

Classes start tomorrow...believe it or not I got an A in Algebra, Trig, and Calculus...go figure

Unpossible.

Broward community college baby!

 

[Ministry of Pain]

this thread is pretty priceless

 

[Ministry of Pain]

but hey don't trust a Cane bra'

Classes start tomorrow...believe it or not I got an A in Algebra, Trig, and Calculus...go figure

Unpossible.

Broward community college baby!

Los Angeles Community College, let's not jump the shark.

 

[yinzer]

this thread is gold Jerry, gold!!

 

[Sarnoff]

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg2042....html?full=true

The perfect way to slice a pizza

* 11 December 2009 by Stephen Ornes

LUNCH with a colleague from work should be a time to unwind - the most taxing task being to decide what to eat, drink and choose for dessert. For Rick Mabry and Paul Deiermann it has never been that simple. They can't think about sharing a pizza, for example, without falling headlong into the mathematics of how to slice it up. "We went to lunch together at least once a week," says Mabry, recalling the early 1990s when they were both at Louisiana State University, Shreveport. "One of us would bring a notebook, and we'd draw pictures while our food was getting cold."

The problem that bothered them was this. Suppose the harried waiter cuts the pizza off-centre, but with all the edge-to-edge cuts crossing at a single point, and with the same angle between adjacent cuts. The off-centre cuts mean the slices will not all be the same size, so if two people take turns to take neighbouring slices, will they get equal shares by the time they have gone right round the pizza - and if not, who will get more?

Of course you could estimate the area of each slice, tot them all up and work out each person's total from that. But these guys are mathematicians, and so that wouldn't quite do. They wanted to be able to distil the problem down to a few general, provable rules that avoid exact calculations, and that work every time for any circular pizza.

As with many mathematical conundrums, the answer has arrived in stages - each looking at different possible cases of the problem. The easiest example to consider is when at least one cut passes plumb through the centre of the pizza. A quick sketch shows that the pieces then pair up on either side of the cut through the centre, and so can be divided evenly between the two diners, no matter how many cuts there are.

So far so good, but what if none of the cuts passes through the centre? For a pizza cut once, the answer is obvious by inspection: whoever eats the centre eats more. The case of a pizza cut twice, yielding four slices, shows the same result: the person who eats the slice that contains the centre gets the bigger portion. That turns out to be an anomaly to the three general rules that deal with greater numbers of cuts, which would emerge over subsequent years to form the complete pizza theorem.

The first proposes that if you cut a pizza through the chosen point with an even number of cuts more than 2, the pizza will be divided evenly between two diners who each take alternate slices. This side of the problem was first explored in 1967 by one L. J. Upton in Mathematics Magazine (vol 40, p 163). Upton didn't bother with two cuts: he asked readers to prove that in the case of four cuts (making eight slices) the diners can share the pizza equally. Next came the general solution for an even number of cuts greater than 4, which first turned up as an answer to Upton's challenge in 1968, with elementary algebraic calculations of the exact area of the different slices revealing that, again, the pizza is always divided equally between the two diners (Mathematics Magazine, vol 41, p 46).

With an odd number of cuts, things start to get more complicated. Here the pizza theorem says that if you cut the pizza with 3, 7, 11, 15... cuts, and no cut goes through the centre, then the person who gets the slice that includes the centre of the pizza eats more in total. If you use 5, 9, 13, 17... cuts, the person who gets the centre ends up with less (see diagram).

Rigorously proving this to be true, however, has been a tough nut to crack. So difficult, in fact, that Mabry and Deiermann have only just finalised a proof that covers all possible cases.

Their quest started in 1994, when Deiermann showed Mabry a revised version of the pizza problem, again published in Mathematics Magazine (vol 67, p 304). Readers were invited to prove two specific cases of the pizza theorem. First, that if a pizza is cut three times (into six slices), the person who eats the slice containing the pizza's centre eats more. Second, that if the pizza is cut five times (making 10 slices), the opposite is true and the person who eats the centre eats less.

The first statement was posed as a teaser: it had already been proved by the authors. The second statement, however, was preceded by an asterisk - a tiny symbol which, in Mathematics Magazine, can mean big trouble. It indicates that the proposers haven't yet proved the proposition themselves. "Perhaps most mathematicians would have thought, 'If those guys can't solve it, I'm not going to look at it.'" Mabry says. "We were stupid enough to look at it."

Most mathematicians would have thought, 'I'm not going to look at it.' We were stupid enough to try

Deiermann quickly sketched a solution to the three-cut problem - "one of the most clever things I've ever seen," as Mabry recalls. The pair went on to prove the statement for five cuts - even though new tangles emerged in the process - and then proved that if you cut the pizza seven times, you get the same result as for three cuts: the person who eats the centre of the pizza ends up with more.

Boosted by their success, they thought they might have stumbled across a technique that could prove the entire pizza theorem once and for all. For an odd number of cuts, opposing slices inevitably go to different diners, so an intuitive solution is to simply compare the sizes of opposing slices and figure out who gets more, and by how much, before moving on to the next pair. Working your way around the pizza pan, you tot up the differences and there's your answer.

Simple enough in principle, but it turned out to be horribly difficult in practice to come up with a solution that covered all the possible numbers of odd cuts. Mabry and Deiermann hoped they might be able to deploy a deft geometrical trick to simplify the problem. The key was the area of the rectangular strips lying between each cut and a parallel line passing through the centre of the pizza (see diagram). That's because the difference in area between two opposing slices can be easily expressed in terms of the areas of the rectangular strips defined by the cuts. "The formula for [the area of] strips is easier than for slices," Mabry says. "And the strips give some very nice visual proofs of certain aspects of the problem."

Unfortunately, the solution still included a complicated set of sums of algebraic series involving tricky powers of trigonometric functions. The expression was ugly, and even though Mabry and Deiermann didn't have to calculate the total exactly, they still had to prove it was positive or negative to find out who gets the bigger portion. It turned out to be a massive hurdle. "It ultimately took 11 years to figure that out," says Mabry.

Over the following years, the pair returned occasionally to the pizza problem, but with only limited success. The breakthrough came in 2006, when Mabry was on a vacation in Kempten im Allgäu in the far south of Germany. "I had a nice hotel room, a nice cool environment, and no computer," he says. "I started thinking about it again, and that's when it all started working." Mabry and Deiermann - who by now was at Southeast Missouri State University in Cape Girardeau - had been using computer programs to test their results, but it wasn't until Mabry put the technology aside that he saw the problem clearly. He managed to refashion the algebra into a manageable, more elegant form.

Back home, he put computer technology to work again. He suspected that someone, somewhere must already have worked out the simple-looking sums at the heart of the new expression, so he trawled the online world for theorems in the vast field of combinatorics - an area of pure mathematics concerned with listing, counting and rearranging - that might provide the key result he was looking for.

Eventually he found what he was after: a 1999 paper that referenced a mathematical statement from 1979. There, Mabry found the tools he and Deiermann needed to show whether the complex algebra of the rectangular strips came out positive or negative. The rest of the proof then fell into place (American Mathematical Monthly, vol 116, p 423).

So, with the pizza theorem proved, will all kinds of important practical problems now be easier to deal with? In fact there don't seem to be any such applications - not that Mabry is unduly upset. "It's a funny thing about some mathematicians," he says. "We often don't care if the results have applications because the results are themselves so pretty." Sometimes these solutions to abstract mathematical problems do show their face in unexpected places. For example, a 19th-century mathematical curiosity called the "space-filling curve" - a sort of early fractal curve - recently resurfaced as a model for the shape of the human genome.

Mabry and Deiermann have gone on to examine a host of other pizza-related problems. Who gets more crust, for example, and who will eat the most cheese? And what happens if the pizza is square? Equally appetising to the mathematical mind is the question of what happens if you add extra dimensions to the pizza. A three-dimensional pizza, one might argue, is a calzone - a bread pocket filled with pizza toppings - suggesting a whole host of calzone conjectures, many of which Mabry and Deiermann have already proved. It's a passion that has become increasingly theoretical over the years. So if on your next trip to a pizza joint you see someone scribbling formulae on a napkin, it's probably not Mabry. "This may ruin any pizza endorsements I ever hoped to get," he says, "but I don't eat much American pizza these days."

There are a host of other pizza problems - who gets more crust, for example, and who gets most cheese

Stephen Ornes is a writer based in Nashville, Tennessee

 

[Mad Cow]

I love when this thread gets bumped.

 

[KnowledgeReignsSupreme]

I would like to be considered for an at large spot too.

-Long time member

-Very active contributor in both the SP and FFA

-Previous competitor in US including making it past the 1st round last year

-Compete in several dynasty leagues with high level competition including some of the FBG staff

-Expert mathematician

Thank you for your consideration

 

[Ned]

I love when this thread gets bumped.