You’ve survived the crowded stores, took advantage of all the Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals, and picked out the perfect presents for all of your friends and family. Now comes the part that everybody hates: wrapping the darn things and making them look halfway presentable.
Fortunately, there’s a video making the rounds online (with Gizmodo and Flowing Data among those who shared it earlier this week) featuring Manchester-based mathematician Katie Steckles demonstrating the correct way to wrap a Christmas present using good old fashion science.
While it’s too late for some of us to take advantage of her advice (and our presents look like they were gift-wrapped by a hyperactive preschooler) hopefully Steckles’ tips and tricks are in time for most of our readers to wow others with their mad wrapping skills.
Better gift wrapping through equations and geometry
Steckles begins by showing us the standard cube-shaped method of wrapping a present, which is all well and good if your present is actually one of the few that will actually be the perfect shape and size for this method to work without a hitch. What if it has, say, a square-shaped end?
Don’t worry: Katie’s got your back. The first thing you need to do is to make sure that the paper will reach the halfway point of the end. If they do, and you use the standard method, you’ll find that all of the corners meet in the middle, forming a rather sweet-looking cross shape.
Another tip she passes along involves the proper wrapping technique for an equilateral triangular prism. The key here, she explained, is to ensure that the height of the side comes to the top of the triangular side of the object, which allows it to cover the entire triangular end of the gift.
The entire video runs 4:28 and also includes tips on how to determine how much paper you will need to wrap a cylindrical present by using the mathematical constant pi and an alternate way to wrap a square-shaped present that uses the diagonal length and height of a box in an equation to determine how much paper you need to wrap it. You can watch the whole video below!
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Feature Image: Thinkstock
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