Math

Here’s why mathematicians are so interested in cake cutting

The problem attracts game theorists, computer scientists, economists and more

Cartoon illustration shows five people sitting around a table with a cake that has been cut in the middle with a knife and additional plates with cake on them in the foreground. Everyone has different sized cake slices on their plates. Only one person looks happy.

The cake serves as a metaphor for anything that can be divided, like land, time or limited resources.

MADELINE MCMAHON

By Stephen Ornes

Ariel Procaccia has thought a lot about how to cut cake over the last 15 years. That’s partly because the Harvard computer scientist has three children who among them have celebrated more than two dozen birthdays. He knows what it’s like to stand with a knife before a layered masterpiece, frosted with buttercream and chocolate curls, while pressed on all sides by small partygoers who instinctively recognize when someone else gets a better slice.