The house of Betty Ross
Puzzle
As the Betty Ross
trick of cutting a five
pointed star with one
clip with a pair of scissors has never been intelligently presented, I will endeavor
to show how it was explained to me
in my early youth. I wish it to be
known that I was born in close proximity to that little house on Arch
street in Philadelphia where Betsy
Ross showed George Washington
and Robert Morris how to design the
five pointed star of freedom.
Puzzle in short
Find a way to get a five pointed star with one clip with a pair of scissors. There are many possible solutions.
Solution
Show solution
There are several ways of performing the feat, but I consider the
following to be the best and most easily described.
Take a rectangular piece of paper, say five by three and
a half inches, and first fold it double
as shown in Fig. i. Then fold on
a line from the center A to the two
corners, folding the corner marked
B forward and the corner C back-
ward, as shown in Fig. 2. Now fold
the paper on a line from C to the
center point A, so as to bring the
edge D parallel with the line B as
shown in Fig. 3. Then fold the end
E backward, bending it on the line
from B to the center point A so the
paper will be folded as shown in
Fig. 4. Now, cutting a straight clip
from F to G, it will produce the five pointed star as shown by Fig. 5. The
usual method, which has to be done
more or less by guesswork, is shown
in the next three illustrations.
First fold a perfectly square piece
of paper in half as shown, and bend
it from the center point so that the
double edge intersects the middle of
the top. Then fold down the top on
that dotted line so as to look like the
second illustration. Then back the
bottom piece on that bias line so it
looks like the third illustration, and
a cut on the dotted line will produce
the shape similar to the other.
It just occurs to me to say that I
remember as a boy that when I
wished to make a perfectly symmetri-
cal five-pointed star, I used to first
cut out a round piece of paper and,
folding it as shown, I would bend it
in five parts and then give it one clip
with the scissors, which insures a
perfect star.
References
