Power-law scaling in the sound of paper crumpling PAUL A. HOULE, JAMES P. SETHNA., LASSP, Cornell University -- From the crust of the Earth under the mechanical stress of tectonic motion to martensites under thermal stress, many systems emit pulsed acoustic energy with a power law probability distribution over energy. We have found that a system that fits comfortably in one's hands, a sheet of paper being crumpled, is a member of this fraternity. Crumpling paper both in hand and using a novel cylindrical geometry we found a power law distribution spanning at least two decades in energy. (p(E)=E^a, a=1.3-1.6) Crupling frsh sheets, previously crumpled sheets, and sheets with regular crease grids we found little or no systematic dependence of the pulse energy distribution over time, the size of the sheet, or on the spacing of the grid. It is known that the sound pulses are caused by the buckling of regions of the paper sheet, but we suspect that the energy of the acoustic pulses depend weakly on the size of the regions producing them.

X Prefer Oral Session Prefer Poster Session Date submitted: November 30, 1995	Paul Houle ph18@cornell.edu LASSP, Cornell University