Brain teaser to stimulate your mental imagery, spatial rotation … and appetite

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Here’s a fun puz­zle that a friend shared over zoom a few days ago.

Chal­lenge: How can you cut a cake into eight equal pieces with only three cuts?

Note: The cake in the puz­zle is not nec­es­sar­i­ly the one pic­tured above :-) Imag­ine your own cake.

Check the answer below only after you’ve tried…

To find the answer, you need to use your men­tal imagery and rota­tion skills while gen­er­at­ing and test­ing your hypothe­ses, visu­al­iz­ing poten­tial ways to solve this brain teas­er. In doing so –good news!– you are work­ing out your visu­al cor­tex in the occip­i­tal lobes, your somatosen­so­ry cor­tex in your pari­etal lobes, and your exec­u­tive func­tions in your frontal lobes.

SOLUTION

There are at least two options to accom­plish the feat:

a) Use two cuts to cut the cake into four equal pieces. Stack the four pieces ver­ti­cal­ly, and use your third cut to cut the four pieces in half. Voilà!

b) Cut the whole cake side­ways first. Then cut twice from the top down in an X pattern.

Have a nice and safe week­end — per­haps bak­ing some cake :-)

To explore more fun brain teasers, puzzles and games:

• Quick brain teas­er to work­out your frontal lobes: Can you read this face?
• Learn about men­tal self-rota­tion with these quick brain teasers
• 25 fun Brain Teasers and Puz­zles for teens and  adults of any age
• What are cog­ni­tive abil­i­ties and how to boost them?