“I got many paper cuts and frankly they were starting to annoy me,” the Technical University of Denmark physicist told New Scientist .
Turns out, the paper posing the greatest threat has a thickness of only 65 micrometers — much like the now little-used dot matrix printer paper, Jensen concluded in cutting remarks published in the journal Physical Review E . Magazine paper was a close second.
The team of researchers gathered different paper products — tissue, magazines, book pages, printer paper, photos and business cards — and tried them out against ballistics gelatine, which is used to simulate the epidermis.
“Our preliminary data indicate that a successful paper cut is physically impossible outside a relatively narrow range of thicknesses for a given angle,” the researchers wrote.
Too thin, and the paper will buckle against the skin. Too thick and it won’t apply enough pressure to cut. Pressure applied straight down was less likely to inflict injury than when sliced at an angle.
Rather than using their research to avoid future paper cuts, the team’s study informed the design of a new, single-use tool called the “Papermachete,” which can cut through fruits, vegetables and poultry.
In the future, they hope to test the blade model on human skin, but recruitment for research might be difficult, Jensen told Science News .
“Ideally you would want some test subjects, but it’s hard to find volunteers,” he said.
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