「用一把奇特的刀切煎餅」這個標題對於一篇學術研究來說或許有些不尋常。但這正是兩位數學家最近發表在網路上的一篇論文的主題。
這項研究的挑戰在於：如何將煎餅盡可能切成塊，這是對一個被稱為「懶惰餐飲服務商問題」的長期難題的最新挑戰。
聽起來很簡單。但其中卻有一些限制：煎餅是無限大的，向各個方向無限延伸。而最簡單的情況也只是使用一把無限長的直刀。
這兩位數學家分別是「整數序列線上百科全書」的創始人尼爾·J·A·斯隆，以及恰如其名的塔夫茨大學本科生大衛·O·H·卡特勒。他們進行了大量的嘗試和糾錯，最終找到了在煎餅上放置各種奇形怪狀的刀的最佳方法，而不僅僅是一把直刀。
“Cutting a Pancake with an Exotic Knife” might seem an unusual title for a piece of academic research. But that was the focus of the paper posted online recently by two mathematicians.
The investigation’s challenge: Cut a pancake into as many pieces as possible, in the latest attack on a longstanding puzzle known as the Lazy Caterer’s problem.
Simple enough. But there were a few caveats: The pancake was infinite, spreading endlessly in every direction. And the simplest case involved an infinite, straight knife.
The mathematicians, Neil J.A. Sloane, the founder of the “On-Line Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences,” and the aptly named David O.H. Cutler, an undergraduate at Tufts University, engaged in a lot of trial and error to negotiate the tricky task of optimally placing not just a straight knife but also a series of weirdly shaped knives on the pancake.
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