Our fan Emmett L., asked, how many ants can eat one pizza? Well, a little ant can eat only about 1 milligram of food a day, or 1/30,000th of an ounce (an ounce is 1/2 of a regular candy bar). Pizza Hut’s 14-inch pie weighs about 30 ounces, so an ant can eat 1/900,000th of that pizza. That means the pizza can feed 900,000 bugs – almost a million ants! If you’re on a picnic, you’d better eat that pizza fast.
Wee ones: Ants have 6 legs. If they hold up their pizza with legs 1 and 2, which number legs aren’t holding the pizza?
Little kids: If you, a (human) friend and an ant share a pizza, how many legs do you have all together? Bonus: If ants eat 1 of the 8 slices, how many ways can you and your friend share the other slices, if each of you gets at least 1?
Big kids: If you’re feeding pizza to 20 animals (people and ants) and there are 4 times as many ants as people, how many of each? Bonus: An ant actually eats about 1/4 its own weight each day. About how much would that be for you?
The sky’s the limit: An 18-inch pie is 9/7ths as wide as a 14-inch one – so its area grows by 9/7 x 9/7, or 81/49ths. If the smaller pizza can feed about 1 million ants, about how many can the large pizza feed? Feel free to round off the ratio!
Answers:
Wee ones: Legs #3, 4, 5, 6.
Little kids: 10 legs. Bonus: 6 ways: 1 for you and 6 for your friend, then 2 and 5, 3 and 4, 4 and 3, 5 and 2, and 6 and 1.
Big kids: 16 ants and 4 people. Bonus: Different for everyone…divide your weight in pounds by 4.
The sky’s the limit: 1,600,000, since you can round off 81/49ths to a nicer neater 80/50ths, or 8/5ths.
