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A provocative tale of unwinding

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 August 2024

Subhranil De
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
Information
The Mathematical Gazette , Volume 108 , Issue 572 , July 2024 , pp. 225 - 236
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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