Packing a cake into a box

Mikhail Skopenkov

Published 2010-03-10Version 1

Given a cake in form of a triangle and a box that fits the mirror image of the cake, how to cut the cake into a minimal number of pieces so that it can be put into the box? The cake has an icing, so that we are not allowed to put it into the box upside down. V.G. Boltyansky asked this question in 1977 and showed that three pieces always suffice. In this paper we provide examples of cakes that cannot be cut into two pieces to put into the box. This shows that three is the answer to V.G. Boltyansky's question. Also we give examples of cakes which can be cut into two pieces.