The Cake Icing Puzzle![]() This puzzle, and the solution that underlies the code, appeared in the book Mathematical Mind-Benders by Peter Winkler (A K Peters, 2007). If is the smallest integer greater than or equal to , then the icing covers the top of the cake after iterations (unless , in which case it takes iterations). The icing will never all be on the bottom of the cake (unless , in which case this happens after iterations). Snapshot 3 shows the situation after 83 cuts for the case , , and ; one more operation restores all the icing.![]() "The Cake Icing Puzzle" from The Wolfram Demonstrations Project http://demonstrations.wolfram.com/TheCakeIcingPuzzle/ Contributed by: Stan Wagon (Macalester College) |
































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