Paper Ball and Bean Bag Dimensions

Paper Ball Procedure

Select two identically sized sheets of the same kind of paper.

Crumple one sheet into an approximately spherical ball. Take the mass of this ball to be 1.

Tear the other sheet of paper in half. Always tear teh paper perpendicular to its longer side. Crumple one piece into a ball, having mass 1/2.

Tear the remaining piece in half. Crumple one piece into a ball, having mass 1/4.

Tear the remaining piece in half. Crumple one piece into a ball, having mass 1/8.

Four paper balls made with stiff paper

Measure the diameters of these paper balls, using a compass can as a caliper. For balls that are not very close to spherical, the average of several diameters can be used. Record the masses and diameters on the data sheets.

Plot the points (log(radius), log(mass)) for these paper balls. If the points appear to lie on a line, the slope of the best-fitting line estimates the mass dimension.

The slope can be determined manually from the graph, or with a linear regression option of a graphing calculator or a spreadsheet.

Return to Paper Ball and Bean Bag Dimension