A page of paper is dead. If it is torn, the tear remains. If it is crumpled, the wrinkles remain. But people are alive. One of the basic characteristics of living beings is that they constantly ...

In time, a semblance of order emerged. Crumpled wads of paper are no doubt as old and commonplace as paper itself; "graves for failed theories", Gottesman, a physicist, has called them.

That’s because they study the physics of crumpled balls of paper, which contain deeper mysteries than you might expect. Take a sheet of A4, scrunch it up and throw it at a colleague.

A page of paper is dead. If it is torn, the tear remains. If it is crumpled, the wrinkles remain. But people are alive. One of the basic characteristics of living beings is that they constantly ...