New York, Sep 8 (IANS): Do you know why despite your best efforts, the slice of pizza you are about to enjoy flops over and dangles from your fingers?

It has nothing to do with either a non-stiff crust or extra toppings. You just need to learn a bit of science about how to hold your slice right.

The cue lies in a powerful mathematical result about curved surfaces invented by the German mathematical genius Carl Friedrich Gauss in the 19th century.

He named it Theorema Egregium - Latin for excellent or remarkable theorem.

This is how it works for pizza.

When the pizza is flat, it has zero curvature.

When you pick up a slice, fold the pizza slice sideways in a U-shape.

This way, you are forcing it to become flat in the other direction - the one that points towards your mouth.

This will keep the slice from flopping over.

The theorem assures that one direction of the slice must always remain flat - no matter how you bend it, the pizza must retain a trace of its original flatness, wired.com reported.