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Ice slice


TimeSpaceLightForce
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When you say, "so that it will melt the quickest", should we assume it refers to the whole cube and not just the slice? Otherwise you could just slice off the smallest possible chunk from a corner.

If the slice must be a straight one, then, starting from two adjacent corners, cut diagonally through the cube to the two opposite corners. This should give us the most surface area on each of the two halves and allow for the quickest natural melting of the cube.

Or cut it with fire. That might be quicker. :P

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When you say, "so that it will melt the quickest", should we assume it refers to the whole cube and not just the slice? Otherwise you could just slice off the smallest possible chunk from a corner.

"so that the ice or the slices to become water as soon as possible"

If the slice must be a straight one, then, starting from two adjacent corners, cut diagonally through the cube to the two opposite corners. This should give us the most surface area on each of the two halves and allow for the quickest natural melting of the cube.

Or cut it with fire. That might be quicker. :PCut should be straight and sharp.. a Light saber or Laser sword will do.

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The heat transfer is proportional to the surface area of the ice.. that is 5 squares because a face is not exposed.

If sliced two surfaces wont be exposed..in the case of answers above..BG's slice (rectangular) makes the largest cross section.

But jhawks (rhombus) slice make the total exposed area larger than BG's but not the largest.

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Ahh... that pesky unexposed side. Gets me every time.

Maybe the slice starts by intersecting the midpoints of two connecting edges and progresses through the opposing side's inverse edges midpoints (crude drawing attached to act as translation).

I'm not sure about the math, but the small face of each piece should be stable enough to act as the base and not tip over?

post-43582-0-20808100-1367530948_thumb.p

Edited by BobbyGo
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I thought perhaps the slice that produces a hexagon would create the largest exposed area.

But I checked, and its side is just 1/2 sqrt (2) = .7071 for a unit cube making an area of six equilateral triangles with that side length, or 1.29.. square units.

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