Weekend Science: Why You Should Always Order A Large Pizza

I understand why someone living in the city might get a slice of pizza - they don't want to carry a box of pizza back to the office, and there is something nice about sitting down and having a quick bite.

But I have never understood why anyone buys a medium pizza, much less a small. If you understand what a circle is, and you understand what a dollar is, it makes no sense.

First, the dollar. The economics should be obvious; like buying any food in bulk, you can see there are fixed costs. A small pizza or a large has someone making it, it has an oven in a shop. Those costs are fixed regardless of which pizza you get. The actual ingredient differences between a small and a large are not a big cost.

Second, the circle. The area of a circle is pi times the radius squared.

Link: Plus magazine

If you double the radius, it isn't slightly more pizza, it is 4X the pizza. If you did not pay 4X the prize, you are leaving money - and leftover pizza - on the table.

Math schmath, what does the real world tell us? Quoctrung Bui at NPR wondered also, and did a lot more than link to two circles. Bui tabulated 74,476 prices from 3,678 pizza places around the country and made a handy little slider based on the results.

If you get an 18 inch pizza, the slider shows us, you will spend around $19. But to get the same area of pizza buying smalls, you would have to spend almost $42.

Madness!

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