Eating my words at Area Four by Andi Q. '25

Area Four (A4) is a popular pizzeria/cafe near MIT. Known for their wood-fired pizza made from a 10-year-old sourdough starter, A4 is the go-to pizza spot for many MIT students.

But not me.

I am A4’s biggest hater, as I believe their pizza defies all known laws of reality. For one, the crust is always simultaneously burnt yet still undercooked. But more perplexingly, the tip of the slice always flops down and spills toppings, cheese, and sauce all over your lap⁠01 This was exactly what happened the first time I had a slice of A4 pizza three years ago. I was left with pieces of pepperoni and cheese on the ground, a large stain on my pants, and a burnt-and-undercooked slice of tomato sauce and sadness. even when you fold it in half.

To appreciate just how cursed this floppiness is, we must first understand some differential geometry. In differential geometry, “Gaussian curvature” is a quantity that describes how a surface curves in 3D space at a given point on the surface. Each direction has some curvature that can be positive (like a frowny face), negative (like a smiley face), or zero (like a straight line); the Gaussian curvature is then defined by multiplying the maximum and minimum curvatures along some directions. The diagram below shows what Gaussian curvature looks like visually:

A nice diagram I took from science4all.org

Gaussian curvature has many nice properties, but in particular:

• If you bend a surface without stretching or crumpling it, its Gaussian curvature doesn’t change.
• Flat surfaces have zero Gaussian curvature everywhere.

These two properties mean that if you take a flat surface and bend it in one direction, the other direction will become flat and rigid to preserve the zero Gaussian curvature. Indeed, watch how a strip of paper perks up with just the slightest amount of folding at the end:

Since a pizza slice is a flat surface before you pick it up, we should expect the same thing to happen to it. That’s why it’s mathematically a good idea to fold large slices of pizza to prevent drooping; TED-Ed even made a video about it 12 years ago!

Yet despite this fundamental result of differential geometry, this happens every time:

:(

In a cruel twist of fate, the graduating blogger dinner on Tuesday (featuring Petey and Ceri) was held at A4. I ordered the Hawaiian pizza pictured above, while Jebby, Fatima, and Mel all ordered the “mushroom and fontina” pizza. Mel must have felt sorry for me though (after witnessing the sad drooping of my slice) and offered to trade a slice of the mushroom pizza with me.

The difference between the Hawaiian pizza and the mushroom pizza was night and day. It was not burnt or undercooked. It did not flop when I picked it up. It was… genuinely delicious! Possibly one of the best slices of pizza I’ve eaten while at MIT. Unlike other A4 pizzas I’ve eaten, the mushroom pizza didn’t use any tomato sauce, which probably gave it the structural integrity the other pizzas lacked.

During the dinner, Petey also mentioned (in response to my initial distaste for A4) that former U.S. President Barack Obama chose to dine at A4 when he visited Cambridge in 2015. And of course, Obama also ordered the mushroom and fontina pizza!

I’m still A4’s biggest hater because of all the past pizza sins I’ve suffered there, but I suppose I can no longer say that all of their pizza is bad. Just remind me to order the mushroom and fontina pizza the next time I visit MIT and Petey/Ceri drag me to A4.