Pizza Are Pie And Pi R Squared – Herb Does Math‽‽‽

Herb’s Blog, Herbdate 23897 – 1323

Dear Fans, Friends, Fiends, Foes, Foundling Frogs, Flounders, Regular Readers, and Pizza Lovers,

Here’s the Haps:

The other night was pizza night. We usually try to have pizza delivered on church nights so we can be busy getting ready, instead of cooking. I love pizza as well as lasagna. I love them as much as I hate math. Oddly enough, I don’t hate math people. In fact, some of my best friends are math people. But then again, I will choke down a few Brussels Sprouts just to keep the peace, or in case there’s a kid around I have to be an example to.

But, loath as I am to admit it, there are occasions I find math a little bit interesting. One such example is the so-called “Missing Dollar” riddle that goes something like this (This has been around since at least the 1930s, thus explaining the prices, lol):

Three friends check into a hotel and pay $30 for a room. Later, the hotel manager realizes the room only costs $25 and sends the bellboy to return $5 to the friends. The bellboy, unable to split the $5 evenly, gives each friend $1 back and keeps $2 for himself. Each friend has now paid $9, totaling $27, and the bellboy has $2, which only totals $29. Where is the missing dollar?

Before the existence of the Internet, it was a fun riddle to spring on certain groups, but now it’s only a matter of seconds to figure it out. * Heavy sigh * But I did find a novel use for math the other day on pizza day. It was novel and interesting to me at any rate. Now, to find the area of a circle, we take half of the diameter to achieve a number that is called the radius. We multiply this number by itself, which is called “Squaring” it. Then we multiply that by an imaginary number (I know its proper name is irrational number, but irrational or imaginary, it seems fairly arbitrary.) called “Pi,” which, for my purposes, equals 3.1416. Pi is a number invented by math people for math people that can be figured out by math people to countless decimal places. But not by me. It is useful, however, for our equation.

I received an email from the pizza place offering any size pizza with any number of toppings for $9.99. The large pizza is 14 inches in diameter; thus, the radius is 7 inches. 7 times 7 = 49. 49 times 3.1416 = 153.9384 square inches. When we divide the price of the pizza, $9.99, by the number of square inches, the calculator shows (surely you didn’t think I did this math without a calculator!) an unwieldy number of decimals, which rounds up to .065. The pizza in this deal comes out to about six and a half cents per square inch. The normal offer is two 12-inch pizzas at $6.99 each, which comes out to .061, i.e., six cents per square inch. But that deal is limited to two toppings each, after which you have to pay extra.

No, I don’t do this every time I order pizza, but it was fun because I do like to look at the “unit price” when I buy something, and I thought that certain of you out there will now be thinking about this when you order next time.