Here’s the perfect way to slice a bagel, because math
Bagel lovers, listen up. Have you been slicing your bagel in half? Then you’ve been doing it wrong. WE’VE ALL BEEN LIVING OUR LIVES WRONG, because there’s actually a mathematically correct way to cut your bagel to get the *perfect* ratio of bread to your preferred topping.
NPR‘s Dan Pashman recently interviewed mathematician Eugenia Cheng, author of How To Bake Pi: An Edible Exploration of the Mathematics of Mathematics. Cheng has discovered that a bagel actually has a Mobius strip, meaning it’s a surface with only one side. Think of it this way: if you were to take a strip of paper and connect it to itself, but first twist one end halfway around, so that it looked like the below, it would only have one side. Then, if you drew a line down the middle of the paper’s surface, you would go entirely around and come back to where you started without ever flipping it over.
“Well, it’s basically completely ridiculous,” Cheng told Pashman. “And isn’t that delicious?”
Yeah, weirdly, it is. But as Pashman explained, bagels are just getting too big and fluffy, which is totally throwing off the ratio of bread to cream cheese (or whatever your preferred topping is), so he decided to take Cheng’s advice and try slicing a bagel down its Mobius strip. First, he drew a line down the bagel (with Sharpie — if you plan on consuming said bagel, PLEASE don’t do that particular step at home), making sure the line wrapped around the inside and outside of the bagel and ended up connecting in the beginning.
After cutting along the line, the inside “should look like an M.C. Escher staircase.” Then, you do the same thing, except half an inch away and parallel to your first line, and spread your preferred topping (Pashman recommends cream cheese and lox, and I totally agree) all up in those insides, and you’ll have your perfect ratio.
“By creating two levels of cream cheese and lox, we’ve improved their ratios to the bagel,” Pashman explains. “And by slicing along Mobius strips, we’ve created something not only delicious, but also architecturally striking.”
Honestly, we totally agree. LOOK AT THIS MASTERPIECE. Oh, math, making our breakfasts better every darn day.
Also, the awesome thing about this method is that once you master it, it actually is more portable this way. And TWO layers of cream cheese and lox? Yes, please.
This method obviously has a bit of a learning curve compared to just slicing a bagel down the middle, but luckily, Cheng has also created a video of how to cut a bagel the *right* way. Check it out for yourself for your next breakfast delight. It can be a little tricky at first, so be careful with those fingers!
Images via YouTube, Twitter
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