We have just made it into the WordPress Top 50 most popular blogs! A big thank you to everyone who has visited, commented, linked and sent supportive emails. Keep it all coming. To celebrate, here is a puzzle involving a cake. It is your birthday and that you have invited seven friends round for tea. You want to cut the cake below into eight equal pieces so that you can all enjoy a slice of the action. However, your blunt knife will only cut the cake three times before becoming utterly useless. How can you cut the cake into eight equal pieces using only three straight cuts?
As ever, feel free to say if you got it, and how long it took you, but no answers please!
Also, just as a reminder, the ‘one sentence at a time’ stories are almost done – who wants to add the closing lines….(female thread here, male thread here).
Tags: puzzle
January 30, 2009 at 9:06 am |
I van think of a way, but I’m fairly sure its not the answer.
January 30, 2009 at 9:23 am |
I love that the “automatically generated” “possibly related posts” include: “World cheers Obama victory!”
Fair ’nuff.
January 30, 2009 at 9:26 am |
i think i got the answer.
January 30, 2009 at 9:57 am |
Got it.
The diagram is misleading… and the cake is a lie.
January 30, 2009 at 9:59 am |
i worked it out i think, i don’t wanna say because it well make spoilers, but i am pretty sure i worked it out, and it’s so obvious aswell.
January 30, 2009 at 10:06 am |
Oh, I saw this puzzle years and years ago. Luckily I remembered it.
January 30, 2009 at 10:25 am |
Figured out a solution to this.
January 30, 2009 at 11:15 am |
Took about 5 minutes of dragging lines around in a graphics program, not finding any intersections that would divide it up by 8, before I realized I was diving up a cake, and not a circle on a computer screen. After that, the tasty truth was easy to swallow.
January 30, 2009 at 11:20 am |
2 minutes – after attempting all kinds of permutations the solution just popped into my mind.
As an addition – Thank you for the amazing talk last night at Edinburgh University.
January 30, 2009 at 11:26 am |
What’s the point of the story competition if people are going to cheat? It really spoils it when people do not follow the rules.
January 30, 2009 at 11:31 am |
This was a much easier one. About a minute and a half.
January 30, 2009 at 11:49 am |
I think I got it. I’m looking forward to hearing the solution to see if I’m right.
January 30, 2009 at 12:47 pm |
Sean: Thanks, once I remembered it’s supposed to be a cake, the solution was pretty easy!
January 30, 2009 at 1:21 pm |
10 seconds.
January 30, 2009 at 1:23 pm |
20 sec. Helps to picture a cake (3D) and not just a 2D circle
January 30, 2009 at 1:52 pm |
A few seconds. I hope I am right this time!
January 30, 2009 at 1:57 pm |
Easy one this one
Unfortunately equal pieces means less cake for me 
January 30, 2009 at 2:05 pm |
I think I have it due to the Jolly Blogger comment
)
January 30, 2009 at 2:34 pm |
I’m getting them faster now – 30 seconds, perhaps all these puzzles are making me smarter.
January 30, 2009 at 3:21 pm |
Never saw it before …. about 1 minute.
January 30, 2009 at 3:25 pm |
2 seconds!
In fact, I often cut Chinese mooncakes in such manner in order to distribute fair ratio of egg yolk for everyone.
January 30, 2009 at 3:40 pm |
About 15 seconds. But it made my brain cell feel good about itself.
January 30, 2009 at 3:43 pm |
I think I got it after about 10s, maybe I’m getting better at these!
January 30, 2009 at 4:34 pm |
Yeah got it right away, except try that at a kids birthday and see if you don’t have 4 very upset kids. So really they all aren’t equal.
January 30, 2009 at 5:05 pm |
That’s a very liberal use of the word “equal”
January 30, 2009 at 5:52 pm |
Approx 5 seconds! Makes a change.
Think it was a good move of yours, Richard, to send your blog details to the Derren Brown site. Definately a few familiar names are regular commenters here.
January 30, 2009 at 6:17 pm |
For the first time, I think I actually got one of your damn’d puzzles!
January 30, 2009 at 7:10 pm |
Got this one quite easily – nice psychology involved in your showing of a circle.
January 30, 2009 at 7:59 pm |
Took me about two minutes.
January 30, 2009 at 8:26 pm |
I got it after two minutes of swearing at my monitor. Also, what kind of cake is it if it’s going to ruin a knife? I like my cakes to be moist and spongy.
January 30, 2009 at 9:18 pm |
@dillene It’s a knife made out of sugar; and it magically dissolves into the cake after 3 cuts; or some sort of bull like that.
January 30, 2009 at 9:44 pm |
Took me a long time somehow of playing with a 3d cake until finally getting the solution.
So easy, yet so challenging!
January 30, 2009 at 9:47 pm |
PS: You’re 55th place now
But it’s still great!
A few more posts and it’ll be first!
Keep posting everyone!
January 30, 2009 at 10:51 pm |
I think I got it. Now I’ll just wait and see if it is actually correct.
January 31, 2009 at 9:07 pm |
About ten seconds, I think.
February 4, 2009 at 1:03 am |
got in in about a min and a half
June 11, 2009 at 7:47 pm |
I was looking through the comments after doodling on paper…i figured it out 1 second after someone said they used a “3D cake” hahaha