A SOLUTION OF CONWAYS FRIED POTATO PROBLEM

In order to fry it as expeditiously as possible, Conway wishes to slic e a given convex potato into n pieces by n-1 successive plane cuts (ju st one piece being divided by each cut), so as to minimize the greates t inradius of the pieces. We show that one has to employ equally-space d parallel cuts, choosing the direction of the cuts parallel to the pl anes of support which determine the minimum width of a well-defined, r ounded potato. We also show some examples and discuss two variations o f the original problem.