Tis the season to wrap presents . . . which is harder than it looks! Cut the paper too short and you leave a gap. Cut it too long and you have bulk to fold over. Is there a way to optimize the amount of paper you use?
Making a geometric net to wrap a present would be the most paper-efficient way in theory. “This means it’ll exactly cover all the faces and not have any overlap anywhere,” says Katie Steckles, a mathematician based in the United Kingdom. But cutting paper from a wrapping paper roll often leaves some waste, and cutting out nets would create even more scraps. “Nets make for very strange shapes, and if you’re trying to use a roll to wrap a pile of presents, you’d need to find a way to fit all the nets onto the sheet without wasting too much space!” Steckles says.
Read on to learn more about Steckles’s mathematical methods for wrapping gifts with just the right amount of paper, leaving minimal scraps. Whether you’re wrapping a rectangular prism or a cylinder, her tips can help you tackle any present!
Have you ever wrapped a present? It’s harder than it looks! If you cut the wrapping paper too short, you’ll leave a gap. But if you cut it too long, you have a lot of extra to fold over. Is there any way to use the perfect amount?
In theory, you could make a geometric net of wrapping paper. A net is a flattened version of a cube or other three-dimensional shape. A net would exactly cover all the faces of a present without any overlap, says Katie Steckles. She’s a mathematician based in the United Kingdom.
Cutting wrapping paper from a roll often leaves some waste. Cutting out nets would create even more scraps. “Nets make for very strange shapes,” says Steckles. “If you’re trying to use a roll of paper to wrap a pile of presents, you need to find a way to fit all the nets without wasting too much space.”
Luckily, Steckles has some mathematical tricks for wrapping gifts with just the right amount of paper. She can wrap cubes, rectangular prisms, or cylinders—and leave very few scraps. Her tips can help you tackle any present. Read on to learn more!