Life

Here's How That "Unlimited Chocolate" Trick Works

by Megan Grant
Aromatic cocoa and chocolate on wooden background
Matei Brancoveanu / 500px/500px/Getty Images

Please, please, please tell me that I'm not the only one complete stumped by the "unlimited chocolate" trick that's going viral online as we speak. I won't tell you how many times I watched the video from SoFlo currently making the rounds on Facebook trying to figure it out, because I'm too ashamed. But I will say this: It wasn't until I watched another video explaining how the "unlimited chocolate" trick works that I finally started to understand it. And when I say "understand," I mean, like, I now understand the tiniest sliver of it. 95 percent of me is still 100 percent confused.

Although the trick has been around for a while, SoFlo recently posted a video demonstrating it in action which has seriously taken off on social media. The video reveals a special way to cut a bar of chocolate — made of smaller rectangles — and actually remove a square while keeping the dimensions the same, meaning you start and end with 16 rectangles of chocolate. But how, you're wondering, is this even possible? If you're removing a rectangle, that should eff the whole thing up, right? False! Which means that you can eat a piece of chocolate with the size of the bar forever staying the same size — unlimited chocolate! Right? Or... something?

Here's the video showing the trick. Watch and be amazed. And totally confused and horribly clueless, like me.

Before you get all excited, though, let's remember that this is quite legitimately impossible. If you're removing a piece of chocolate, the original bar is getting smaller in size. Yes, you read that right. No unlimited chocolate for you — it's all a clever illusion.

My brain is clearly incapable of understanding the trick behind the so-called "unlimited" chocolate trick on its own; luckily, though, there's a video explaining the math/logic/geometry/whatever behind it. It turns out that the bar is actually shrinking in size — but because it doesn't appear to shrink by a whole rectangle, we don't notice it. When the bar is hacked up and rebuilt, there is still chocolate missing from it, in the form of tiny little portions that add up to one full rectangle.

Here, watch it for yourself:

See?! These little guys are the culprit.

These are the reason you don't have unlimited chocolate.

I feel so betrayed. This reminds me of when I found out the Tooth Fairy isn't real. Ugh.

So there you have it, folks. The unlimited supply of chocolate is nothing but an unlimited supply of lies. But hey, at least some chocolate is better than no chocolate, right?

Images: Matei Brancoveanu / 500px/500px/Getty Images; Guillermo Bautista/YouTube (2)