Science says we've been cutting cakes all wrong

“Cutting a Round Cake on Scientific Principles” blows away the conventional triangular slice method. (iStock)

Normally, when you cut a cake you cut a triangular piece from the center, right?

Ready for some life-changing information?  We've been cutting cakes the wrong way for our entire lives.

British writer and mathematician Alex Bellos suggests that if you use the triangular slice method for a circular cake you’re not “maximizing the amount of gastronomic pleasure," unless you want to eat the whole cake in one sitting.

When you want to eat it later, the exposed cake is dry, hard and overall yucky.

In a new video, Bellos, also known as Numberphile, says the "scientific" way to cut a round cake is down the middle (OMG!) and then cut rectangular slab of cake from the center, remove it and then simply push the two halves back together before storing.   That way nothing is exposed and you can keep eating fresh cake day after day.

Bellos shows how to cut the cake on day two, three, four and so on to ensure no areas of the cake are exposed. He also uses a rubber band to keep the cake together.

This method isn't Bellos. The idea first appeared in the science journal Nature in 1906 in a letter to the editor titled “Cutting a Round Cake on Scientific Principles.”

How could we have not known that there was a better way to cut cake that is more than 100 years old?