Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories Math has never exactly been my forté. If it involves food, however, I'll give it a whack. On first glance these fractal snowflake cupcakes are seemingly simple, with a series of triangles and what have you thrown together to make a darling little shape that reminds me of arts and crafts time. How wrong I was. These cakes require some serious math. Lets break it down, shall we? It all starts with a "simple" algorithm. The Koch snowflake algorithm consists of three identical Koch curves, which essentially make one large triangle. This triangle is cut into four smaller triangles made of blue fondant and then centered on another larger triangular base which is made of...
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Four researchers from the UK's Leeds University spent more than a thousand hours testing 700 variations of bacon sandwiches using both a computer and 50 taste-testing volunteers, and they managed to come up with the formula for perfectly crisp bacon: N = C + {fb(cm) . fb(tc)} + fb(Ts) + fc . ta N = force in Newtons required to break the cooked bacon. fb = function of the bacon type. fc = function of the condiment/filling effect. Ts = serving temperature. tc = cooking time. ta = time or duration of application of condiment/ filling. cm = cooking method. C = Newtons required to break uncooked bacon. Team leader Dr. Graham Clayton says, "We often think that it’s...
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