BUY THE BIGGER PIZZA

(February, 2014) Should you buy the regular-size pizza, or the large? Which is the better deal? National Public Radio’s Planet Money did the math, compiling data from over 74,000 pizzas from 3,678 different U.S. pizzerias. They found that a larger pizza is always a better deal: Because a pizza is a circle, the area of the circle increases with the radius. Thus, a 16-inch pizza is actually four times bigger than an 8-inch pizza. So if you buy a 12-inch pizza for 12 bucks, you could buy a pizza with twice the surface area for just a few bucks more.
* This is why we all should have paid more attention in math class.
* It all boils down to that famous equation, Pizza Pie R Squared.
– Here’s the math: the area of a 12″ pizza: 3.14 x 6 x 6 = 113.04 square inches. The area of a 16″ pizza: 3.14 x 8 x 8 = 200.96 square inches, nearly twice as big, for way less than twice the money.
* Not to mention how good leftover pizza is for breakfast the next morning.
* Next up on NPR: Are free refills worth it?
* For me, my regular pizza IS a large pizza.