English

Sub-singularities for shaping thin sheets

Soft Condensed Matter 2025-03-24 v1

Abstract

The principles behind the sharp, singular structures in a crumpled sheet are well understood. Here we discuss more general ways of exploiting such sharp structures to control the shape of a sheet by deforming or forcing it elsewhere. Often, the induced shape leads to further sharp structures -- ``sub-singularities". Though weaker and softer than the primary singularities, they nevertheless provide robust ways of shaping a sheet. In simple cases we understand the reason for these and their strength. This paper surveys a broad range of other sub-structure phenomena and reports recent progress in understanding some of them.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2503.16701,
  title  = {Sub-singularities for shaping thin sheets},
  author = {Thomas A. Witten and Anna Movsheva},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2503.16701},
  year   = {2025}
}

Comments

Festschrift for Etienne Guyon submitted to EPJ-ST. 5 pages, 4 figures