Math Department (Thesis/2009-10)

Cutting the Cheese Pizza

Under the direction of: Paul Friedman

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This month's issue of ''The American Mathematical Monthly'' (known as The Monthly) has a very interesting article entitled ''Of Cheese and Crust: A Proof of the Pizza Conjecture and Other Tasty Results'' that discusses the following problem: ''A pizza is divided into $2N$ equiangular slices by means of $N$ straight, concurrent cuts. It is then shared by two individuals (''Gray'' and ''White''), who alternate slices. When does the total area of the gray slices exceed that of the white slices?''

This thesis would read this paper and study the question, its answers, and its variants.

This is a one or two-term thesis. Prerequisite: Math 117.

Math Department web pages Created: 11 May 2009 Last modified: 11 May 2009 00:00:00 Comments to: math@union.edu

Thesis Topics - P. Friedman Thesis Topics for 2009-2010 Thesis Topics - P. Friedman