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A provocative tale of unwinding

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 August 2024

Subhranil De*
Affiliation:
School of Natural Sciences, Indiana University Southeast, New Albany, IN 47150 USA e-mail: [email protected]
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One fine spring morning, at some point, I was simply tearing a few sheets of paper towel off a fresh roll. As the sheets came off and the roll rotated about the vertical axle of the holder (Figure 1), I lazily pondered the geometry lurking in the situation. I realised that sometimes I would let the roll rotate as the unwound part moved straight until tearing, while at other times, I might hold the roll in place and unwind the sheets around the roll. More often, it would be some spontaneous combination of the two modes of unwinding.

Type
Articles
Copyright
© The Authors, 2024 Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Mathematical Association

References

Irodov, I. E., Problem 1.220, Problems in general physics (10th Edn.), CBS Books (2015, Reprinted: 2019).Google Scholar
Circle Involute, Wolfram MathWorld, available at https://mathworld.wolfram.com/CircleInvolute.html Google Scholar