University physicists Thomas Witten and Sidney Nagel have been investigating where energy is stored in thin sheets of Mylar when work is performed on them by crumpling. They find the ability of a ...

The news that crumpled paper obeys a state variable — or a crease law, or a damage law — has been received in the academy with wonderment and delight, since, as the authors noted, it represented “a ...

From studies of “geometric frustration,” scientists learn how paper folds under pressure. By Siobhan Roberts A piece of crumpled paper, in all of its creased fragmentations, suffers from “geometric ...