The days of working yourself up into a panic at the prospect of preparing scones for waiting guests and having to decide on which goes on first, the jam (how much?) or the (whipped or clotted, and how much?) cream, are finally, finally over.

Eugenia Cheng, Senior Lecturer of Pure Mathematics at the University of Sheffield, has put together this little formula to dictate how much of each should go on your scone.

Of course, like any such formula, there are a number of variables, such as the size of the scone. The bigger the scone, the more cream is needed.

The bigger the test subject’s mouth, the higher the maximum height of the scone can be.

She has even managed to put together a theorem which states that “Clotted cream is better than whipped cream on a scone”, largely due to the thickness of whipped cream upsetting the delicate calculations.

Of course, one hugely important factor was left out of this whole debate - is it pronounced s-cone, or scon-e?