Friday, April 20, 2018

logical deduction - Infinitely long loaf of Bread




You are visiting your old friend Mike at Infinitely's Baking Shop. Just as you arrived, he was taking out a fresh, infinitely long loaf of bread. Both of its ends extend infinitely long in a straight line. The smell of the breads displayed on the infinitely long shelves feels so good.



But you know that Jesse, your roommate, only eats the crusts of the bread (the ends of the bread). If you ask for the freshly baked bread, you'll grab it by its center, and since it's infinite in both directions, no finite speeds can bring you to either of its ends, and you know you can't travel faster than light anyway.


If you grab one of the loaves of bread from the display, you can grab it by one of its ends and thus cut a single crust piece, but Jesse needs two, or he'll stay hungry.


You might consider buying two loaves of bread from the display to solve this dilemma, but you can afford only one loaf and can't obtain more money for today by any means. Nor can you obtain more loaves by any other means. Mike is also not very giving, to just give you a loaf without receiving the money equaling its total cost.


enter image description here


After standing there shortly, you came up with an idea. At the end of the day, you walked out with two crusts in one hand, and the rest of the infinitely long bread in your infinitely long bag carried in your other hand. How did you manage to do it?




The picture represents a rough estimate of how a loaf of bread would look like if it was finite in length. (Mike only sells infinite breads)


The intended solution, in my opinion, is quite nice. I'm not sure if there are any other tricky means to solve the problem, but go for it.





Edit: The accepted answer, in my opinion, is simpler and better than the intended solution, and it can lead to a "problem" regarding infinities.


Intended solution hint:



The "problem" could be represented as a disagreement between yourself and Mike, which can take place some moments after Mike already agreed to your proposal.



Added the "open-ended" tag because it is unknown how many ways the infinities of the loaves can be interpreted.



Answer



You can ask for the freshly-baked bread, grabbing it by its center and



asking that it be packed into the bag with the bread folded at the point you grabbed it, and with that point going into the bag first. The two ends would be within easy reach of the bag's opening, so you just cut them off, hold the bag in one hand and the crusts in the other.




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