"If you cut into an onion with distinct layers, the way those layers curve means that all the pieces will never all be the exact same size. So if you cut into an onion using perfectly vertical cuts, the pieces near the middle will be very even, but the pieces towards the edges will be much larger. You might try to fix this by making your cuts 'radially', that is, angled to meet at the centre of the onion."
"Dr Dylan Poulsen, an associate professor of mathematics at Washington College, calculated in a blog post that you need to make your cuts while aiming at an imagined centre point below your chopping board. Dr Poulsen told Daily Mail: 'Using calculus, I found that to minimise the variance of the area of the onion pieces, a chef should aim at a point under the centre of the onion that is 0.55730669298566447885... onion radiuses beneath the centre of the half-onion.'"
Onion layers curve, causing perfectly vertical cuts to yield much larger outer pieces and more even pieces near the center. Attempts to cut radially toward the centre instead produce disproportionately small core pieces and increase inconsistency. Adding horizontal cuts before dicing further worsens uniformity. Calculus-based analysis identifies a specific aiming point beneath the onion that minimizes variance in piece area. The optimal depth is approximately 0.55730669298566447885 onion radiuses below the centre of a half-onion, and aiming at that point produces more evenly sized pieces for consistent cooking.
Read at Mail Online
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