science at its peak.

Perusing the New York Times today, I’ve come across what must be the greatest scientific formula ever discovered by humans:

N = C + {fb(cm) · fb(tc)} + fb(Ts) + fc · ta

This will likely prove to be one of the most important discoveries of the new millennium, one of those which alters humankind’s perspective of reality and fundamentally changes the landscape of our society and culture.

According to Leeds University, supposedly a respectable institution, this is the formula for creating the *perfect* bacon sandwich. Or, bacon butty, as those dastardly alliterative Brits call it. But don’t start celebrating just yet — it’s not an automaton, a formula that you can just plug in to your kitchen and expect to do all the magic for you. No, this formula takes into account such essential variables as the amount of force (in newtons) one must apply to the ideal bite, the amount of sound (in decibels) that said crunch should emit, and the effect of condiments (undefined units). The scope of the study was vast:

Researchers at Leeds University spent more than 1,000 hours testing 700 variants on the traditional bacon sandwich, which many Britons refer to as a bacon butty (eschewing the term sandwich, said to have been coined to honor the fourth Earl of Sandwich’s habit of eating meat between slices of bread around 1762).

The perfect butty is not for the faint of heart nor the weak-willed. If you cannot appreciate the thousands of research hours (and, probably, British pounds) that went into this study, then you don’t deserve to eat. Period.

Read the original Times article here. You’ll probably need a free account to read the article. All of a sudden I have the strongest craving for crispy bacon…

-D