This Is the Way the Paper Crumples’

Before reading the article:

Try a mini experiment. Take a sheet of paper, any shape or size, and crumple it. Unfold it and describe what you see. (If you don’t have a piece of paper on hand, watch this video.) Consider some of these variables:

• What do you notice about how it folded?
• What shapes do you see?
• How big or small are they?
• How sharp or subtle are the creases?
• Can you detect any patterns?
• Compare your paper to a classmate’s. Do you see any patterns across your papers?

Now, crumple and unfold your piece of paper again:

• What do you notice now?
• Are there any new creases?
• Did it crumple along any of the same lines?
• Did any of the shapes change?
• Does using more or less force to crumple it affect what you see?

Do this a few more times and add to your notes.

From this experiment, do you detect any kind of order to the crumpling of paper? For example, do you think you could predict where and how any piece of paper would crumple? Or does it seem like a lawless, chaotic process to you? Explain.

Now, read the article, “This Is the Way the Paper Crumples,” and answer the following questions:

1. Why do scientists devote considerable energy to trying to understand the dynamics of crumpling? Why do they say paper is an “ideal model” for this research?

2. What did initial research about crumpled paper reveal? What does Omer Gottesman’s latest advancement show about the phenomenon?

3. What was Mr. Gottesman’s methodology for studying paper crumpling?

4. What key ideas did he discover in his research?

5. How have academics received Mr. Gottesman’s findings and why?

6. How might the study of crumpled paper be useful in other areas of science? Give one example from the article.

7. Shmuel M. Rubinstein says that paper crumpling is a “good metaphor.” What is it a metaphor for?