Stamp Folding
The number of ways of folding a strip of stamps has several possible variants. Considering only positions of the hinges for unlabeled stamps without regard to orientation of the stamps, the number of foldings is denoted U(n). If the stamps are labeled and orientation is taken into account, the number of foldings is denoted N(n). Finally, the number of symmetric foldings is denoted S(n). The following table summarizes these values for the first n.
See also
Map Folding, Postage Stamp ProblemExplore with Wolfram|Alpha
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References
Gardner, M. "The Combinatorics of Paper-Folding." In Wheels, Life, and Other Mathematical Amusements. New York: W. H. Freeman, pp. 60-73, 1983.Gardner, M. The Sixth Book of Mathematical Games from Scientific American. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, pp. 21 and 26-27, 1984.Koehler, J. E. "Folding a Strip of Stamps." J. Combin. Th. 5, 135-152, 1968.Lunnon, W. F. "A Map-Folding Problem." Math. Comput. 22, 193-199, 1968.Ruskey, F. "Information of Stamp Folding." https://web.archive.org/web/20120707041449/http://www.theory.csc.uvic.ca/~cos/inf/perm/StampFolding.html.Sloane, N. J. A. A Handbook of Integer Sequences. Boston, MA: Academic Press, p. 22, 1973.Sloane, N. J. A. Sequences A000136/M1614, A001010/M0323, and A001011/M1455 in "The On-Line Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences."Referenced on Wolfram|Alpha
Stamp FoldingCite this as:
Weisstein, Eric W. "Stamp Folding." From MathWorld--A Wolfram Resource. https://mathworld.wolfram.com/StampFolding.html