There is a large bar of Swiss chocolate laid out in an array of 6×8 squares. Typically, the bars are shared by breaking them along the ridges. If you break the bar initially on a horizontal ridge, the break is of length 6, and if you break on an initial vertical ridge, the break of of length 8. For example, you could start with a vertical break on the second ridge and get a 2 × 8 and a 4 × 8 piece, than then break the 4 × 8 piece on the 4th horizontal ridge and get two 2 × 2, and two 4 × 4 pieces. You cannot stack the pieces, you can only break one piece at a time. If you want to end up with the bar completely broken up, what is the method of breaking which has the fewest breaks.
2026-05-05 06:37:12.1777963032
Breaking Chocolate Problem
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Initially, there is one piece of chocolate. When you have finished, there will be 48. Observe that each break splits a piece into two pieces, and so increases the total number of pieces by 1. To reach 48 pieces, you therefore need 47 breaks, and all methods require this number.