Finally, a practical math application: Flipping pancakes
"The cook at the Sunrise Cafe is sloppy. When she prepares pancakes, they all come out a different size. The server, however, is tidy. Before he delivers a stack to a customer, he rearranges the pancakes in order of size, with the smallest one on top and the largest on the bottom. To do so, he grabs several pancakes from the top and flips them over. He repeats this "grab-and-flip" operation as many times as necessary, varying the number of pancakes that he flips each time. If he has a stack of n pancakes, what's the maximum number of flips that he'll ever need to use to rearrange them?"
According to Science News, if you have a stack of five pancakes, there are 120 ways you can flip them to get them in order according to size. Or you could just devour them at Tex & Shirley's on Wednesday nights before you have time to think about the order they're in.
