Answer to September 6, 2004 Problem |
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The Coconut Cake Problem |
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One day, my son-in-law Eric brought home a coconut cake and announced
that he wanted a piece of cake with the most icing (meaning a corner).
The cake was a square cake 6"x6" and 3" tall with icing on the four sides and the top.
Consider the thickness of the icing to be negligible.
We decided to cut the cake in four pieces of equal volume so that my son-in-law
could have the most icing. We made six cuts shown in red in the diagram below: |
Solution to the Problem:
The cuts should be made .4019 inches from the side of the cake. Eric got 72 square inches
more of icing than each of the rest of us.
The first part of this problem can be found by changing this to an area problem and
considering just the 6"x6" square (since the depth is always three inches).
See the diagram below. |
1. Larry Schwartz | Trumbull, Connecticut |
2. James Alarie | University of Michigan -- Flint, Flint, Michigan |
3. Chris McCormick | Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, Virginia |
4. Walt Arrison | Philadelphia, Pennsylvania |
5. John Funk | Ventura, California |
6. David & Judy Dixon | Bennettsville, South Carolina |
7. S. McCann | ---------- |
8. Kevin Jacobson | Columbus, Georgia |
9. Jeffrey Gaither | Winchester, Virginia |
10. Misty Carlisle | Winchester, Virginia |
11. Misty Carlisle | Winchester, Virginia |
12. Tristan Collins | Winchester, Virginia |
13. Viktor Logrell | Tullängenskolan, Örebro, Sweden |
14. Bahadir Güngör | Tullängenskolan, Örebro, Sweden |
15. Sanna Lejegren | Tullängenskolan, Örebro, Sweden |
16. Emily Auerbach | Columbus, Georgia |
17. Josh Feingold | California Institute of Technology Pasadena, California |
18. Gustav Nilsson | Tullängenskolan, Örebro, Sweden |
19. Daniel Kvist | Tullängskolan, Örebro, Sweden |
20. Erik Hultgren | Tullängskolan, Örebro, Sweden |
21. Jonathan Jansson | Tullängen, Örebro, Sweden |
21. Jonas Sutinen | Tullängsskolan, Örebro, Sweden |