Math cake Ideas Answer before 11 pm on 3-10-2010

[Adi123]

Math cake! Ideas Answer before 11 pm on 3-10-2010..

Can u help me? I need a great idea for a math cake. Please help me, i have been racking my brains! If u answer, write in detail please...

 

[Mensanator]

Does it have to be a cake?

If you baked a cherry pie in a square tin you could label it "pie are square".

 

[Mensanator]

Make a layer cake (layers progresively smaller like a wedding cake) with a dowel running through the center. Bring two empty plates each with a similar dowel and announce nobody gets a piece until The Towers of Hanoi is solved.

 

[berkeman]

Can u help me? I need a great idea for a math cake. Please help me, i have been racking my brains! If u answer, write in detail please...

Sounds like school work. What is the context of your question? What are your ideas so far?

 

[Mensanator]

Then again, there's Fermat's Little Torte.

Start with a 5x5x5 cube of cupcakes.

Remove one corner column (1x1x5) and note the remaining cupcakes can be divided by 3 (24 1x1x5 columns).

Reassemble into a 4x4x4 cube.

Remove another corner column and note they can still be divided by 3 (15 1x1x4 columns).

Reassemble as a 2x2x2 cube, remove a corner column and they are still divisible by 3 (3 1x1x2 columns).

When someone says "Hey, what about the 3x3x3 cube?", you sheepishly admit you can't do that because the 8 remaining 1x1x3 columns can't be divided by 3. And then amaze them by dividing the cube into three equal layers!

If everyone hasn't overrun the table to grab a cupcake by now, demonstrate it works in two dimensions also.

 

[Werg22]

Sounds like school work. What is the context of your question? What are your ideas so far?

hahaha

 

[Adi123]

current ideas:
sigma
pie symbol (too much used)
can spell stuff out in iceing or bubble gum

 

[CRGreathouse]

How about a proof without words?

Barile has a nice one for pentagonal numbers at MathWorld.

There are many good ones for the Pythagorean Theorem; here is one of the oldest known:

(expanation here).

More examples:
http://www.usamts.org/About/U_Gallery.php
http://demonstrations.wolfram.com/ProofWithoutWords12N1NChoose2/
http://mathoverflow.net/questions/8846/proofs-without-words