Peter the Piemaker is having people over and knows there will either be 7 or 8 people in attendance.
What is the fewest number of slices he needs to make sure everyone gets an equal amount of pie, regardless of whether there is 7 or 8 people there?
(The slices DON’T need to be the same size, as long as everyone gets the same amount of pie.)
The first new player to comment on the website with the correct answer wins a free drink at their next iQ Trivia show.
How tall is the pie? The capability to make any number of horizontal slices (from zero upwards) affects the answer considerably.
We’re not talking about the number of times he needs to make a cut, but the number of slices that are needed.
But we have done questions on unusual cake cutting strategies.
14
He cuts 8 equal sized pieces then cuts one of those 8 into 7 equal size but not necessarily same shape pieces. If 8 show up 7 get full size (i.e. 1/8 of the pie) pieces and one gets 7 little pieces adding up to one. If 7 show, they each get a single full size piece plus one of the little pieces. It would be simpler for him to wait and see who came in the door.
That is the fewest number of slices.
And it’s also why you should RSVP. So these kind of slicing irregularities don’t happen.
You don’t specify whether the whole cake needs to be eaten, so cutting it into 8 equal slices seems the simplest way. If the eighth person does not show up, then the seven who do get one equal slice each.
However, I suspect you mean for the whole cake to go, in which case, cut the cake into eight, and cut the eighth slice into 7 equal slices. So if seven people, each gets a big slice and small. If eight show up, the eighth gets the seven small slices, which equals a big.
Yes, for the whole pie to go, you want 7 normal slices, and the 8th to be subsliced into seven pieces.
Hey, if you turn up late after saying you “might” come, you get the weird tiny slices.