Live data from Hacker News

How to Slice a Bagel into Two Linked Halves (2009)

georgehart.com

51–60 of 68 posts

Re: How to Slice a Bagel into Two Linked Halves (2009)

#51
post #45
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A mug is topologically equivalent to a bagel or donut or torus.

T-topologically w-what?? I mean yeah, that was the point of my remark. To write something on topic as well: There was a fun little challenge on puzzles.stackexchange I think, which relied on the same construction as this article. I couldn’t find it, but it went like this: “You’re stuck on top of a tall building with nothing but a saw. There’s a ladder fastened to the side of the building, but it’s unfortunately not l…

As far as I can tell this challenge would not require a twisted cut.

Re: How to Slice a Bagel into Two Linked Halves (2009)

#52

Exercise to the reader: How do you slice the bagel so that you can spread cream cheese continuously along both sides. In other words, can you make a Möbious bagel?

I definitely saw a Mobious bagel on Youtube, perhaps about 5 years ago - my attempt to copy it failed, my bagel was too soft.

Re: How to Slice a Bagel into Two Linked Halves (2009)

#53
Just had a brief discussion at work about bagels that started with a complaint about how they're never sliced all the way through.

After a couple minutes of back and forth an epiphany was realized that if they were pre-cut all the way through they'd get jumbled up and then we'd spend way too much time rifling through halves to find a matching one.

Re: How to Slice a Bagel into Two Linked Halves (2009)

#54

Here's George Hart's daughter Vi Hart making a Mexihexaflexagon, which is a kind of three-sided flat quesadilla: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GTwrVAbV56o That family must have the best picnics!

The manner of delivery is reminiscent of Steve “Protopod” Sutton’s [0] famous iced tea video. [1]

[0] https://www.youtube.com/user/protopod

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hSkT77010fE

Re: How to Slice a Bagel into Two Linked Halves (2009)

#55
post #51
post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

T-topologically w-what?? I mean yeah, that was the point of my remark. To write something on topic as well: There was a fun little challenge on puzzles.stackexchange I think, which relied on the same construction as this article. I couldn’t find it, but it went like this: “You’re stuck on top of a tall building with nothing but a saw. There’s a ladder fastened to the side of the building, but it’s unfortunately not l…

As far as I can tell this challenge would not require a twisted cut.

Please elaborate!

Re: How to Slice a Bagel into Two Linked Halves (2009)

#56
post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe every link would be linked to every other link.

Not necessarily. Just as you could take a chain and stack the links such that the holes lined up, with enough precision, and a strong enough baked good, you could cut the bagel such that there were a chain of linked rings.

Well, if you cut the bagel according to this particular linked torodial method, to produce two links, you’d then be able to perform the traditional bagel slice on one of the linked halves, and that would produce a chain with three links...

But deriving from a single original torus, a chain with an arbitrary or infinite number of links, whereby each individual link is bound to no more than two other links? I’ll have to think about that one...

Re: How to Slice a Bagel into Two Linked Halves (2009)

#57
post #55
post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as I can tell this challenge would not require a twisted cut.

Please elaborate!

I think it would be possible to slice the ladder exactly in half, down its length, right?

Each rung would go from a cylinder to a half-cylinder, but should still be rigidly connected to either side of the ladder all the same.

Re: How to Slice a Bagel into Two Linked Halves (2009)

#59

Exercise to the reader: How do you slice the bagel so that you can spread cream cheese continuously along both sides. In other words, can you make a Möbious bagel?

Haven't attempted or vetted yet, but perhaps this? https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=NRvK_07KRV8
Post reply on HN