Before you head to your nearest Pizza Hut, you better read this one.
When it comes to pizza sizes, all those pizza size charts, and the most bang for your buck, there appears to be one rule and one rule only – the bigger the better! And here we have some science to back this up.
Namely, one extensive study by NPR examined the prices from 3,678 pizza joints all over the United States, calculated the average price per square inch of pizza, and came to the following conclusion:
If you want more pizza for your money, you better order the large size as you will end up paying less per square inch of pizza.
The Pizza π
Let’s delve a little deeper into the math of this interesting and delicious equation. In case you forgot your math already, a 16-inch pizza is four times the size of the 8-inch pizza, which means the larger pizza will be far less than four times the price of the small one.
Since π (Pi) is equal to 3.14159 approximately, and R (the radius) is half the diameter, the calculation for the area of the pizza is πr2.
The math is pretty simple, but in case you are too lazy to do it yourself, here’s how the folks over at Big Think so politely demonstrated this calculation:
16-INCH PIZZA:
r (radius)=8 inches
Calculation: 3.14159 * (8 squared) = 201.06176
8-INCH PIZZA:
r (radius)=4inches
Calculation: 3.14159 * (4 squared) = 50.26544
Long story short – the smaller the pizza, the more you pay for a square inch of delicious food. The bigger the pizza, the more you get for your buck. It is as simple as that. Who knew…
