If, when it comes to family takeaway time, you’ve been ordering two 12-inch pizzas instead of the single 18-incher in the belief there’d be more to go around, then you’ve been doing it wrong.

Twitter account Fermat’s Library, which promotes itself as a “platform for illuminating academic papers”, has the maths to back it up.
[adunit mobile=”RTK_dVa8″]
The account dropped an A-bomb of a tweet on Monday when it revealed the 18-inch pizza has more pizza than two 12-inch pizzas combined.
Here's a useful counterintuitive fact: one 18 inch pizza has more 'pizza' than two 12 inch pizzas pic.twitter.com/hePSpG0pJs
— Fermat's Library (@fermatslibrary) January 7, 2019
Acknowledging that it was a “counterintuitive fact”, Fermat’s Library explained that there are 254 square inches per 18-inch pizza.
This, somehow, amounts to more than two 12-inch pizzas, which in comparison contain just 226 square inches of pizza.
[adunit mobile=”RTK_wCZW”]
Predictably, Twitter couldn’t handle it. Not even a little bit. And so out came the memes.
— Mark Sykes (@MarkSykes15) January 7, 2019
A prominent voice among the baffled, @rscotteisenberg tweeted: “This must be quantum physics. I hear all kinds of strange things happen there.”
[adunit mobile=”RTK_z9hm”]
@polyphanes, meanwhile, used the information to send a friend into meltdown: “She didn’t believe me, she did the math, then she let out the most straight-from-the-soul “No” that I’ve ever heard.”
— meowmeow bigheals (@apleasantpossum) January 7, 2019
@DaleJacksonPI argued it was all part of a Big Pizza cover-up: “The pizza industry has known this for years but kept their studies hidden. Thanks for speaking truth to power”.
[adunit mobile=”RTK_dVa8″]
Still, at least one Twitter user, @TamasGorbe, saw the upside: “Yeah, but the crust is arguably the best part and two 12 inch pizzas have 33.3% more crust than a 18 inch pizza”.
In response, @Bryan_or_Mitch understandably wrote that @TamasGorbe was “blocked”.
@aushiekahn maybe math does matter pic.twitter.com/lKD8ie1APX
— Katelyn Cavaleri (@kcavsays) January 7, 2019