#229 The greater gouda
Set by Brian Hobbs
Madeline has many large cheese cubes to cut into smaller cubes for tonight’s charity event. She wants to turn some of the large cubes into 4x4x4 smaller ones, creating 64 in total (see image A). She could do that with nine straight cuts, three along each axis, but her knife is as dull as the task, and she realises that if she rearranges the pieces between cuts, she can double their number with every cut she makes, and thus get the same result with fewer slices. After the first cut, there are two pieces; after the second, four;…