It's not you, it's physics: The Wallpaper Problem

There you are again, at the 11th hour, wrapping that present.

Off comes the price tag, ‘snip’ goes the scissors, and you peel off a piece of tape. Except that the tape, sensing your hurry, tapers down to a point and leaves with a useless, triangular piece. So you try again, once you find the point that was left on the tape roll. And once again, you find your piece of tape narrowing, narrowing, narrowing.

The same *!@#$ phenomenon happens with wallpaper, too. You can’t just peel it off in a nice, even swath; no, it has to peel away from the wall in those deterministically infuriating triangles.

Well, for what it's worth, it’s not you, it’s physics.

Now, an MIT mathematician and his international team of colleagues officially christen that effect "The Wallpaper Problem.” More importantly, in the March 30 issue of Nature Materials, they try to explainwhy, using a model of the peeling problem that accurately predicts the angle of the triangle.

Three different kinds of interactions on that little piece of tape drive the infuriating triangles: elasticity, adhesive energy and fracture energy (“how tough it is to rip,” says the press release).

The tendency toward triangles extend to natural materials, too: the skins of grapes and oranges, for example, likes to go triangular when peeled.

More from the press release:

They also figured out just how those triangular tears arise. As the strip is pulled, energy builds up in the fold that forms where the tape is peeling from the surface. The tape can release that energy in two ways: by unpeeling from its surface and by becoming narrower, both of which it does.

Does understanding the science behind a common annoyance make it less annoying?

I don't think geckel has this problem.