Up Close and Personal with Paper

I love it when two of my passions come together. I've been a science geek forever, much longer than I've been in love with making books, and photomicrographs (pictures taken through microscopes at various magnifications) have always brought out the same wonder in me that the night sky does. Along with the dozens of book and paper arts sites I peruse daily, I keep an eye on several science sites as well, including the National Geographic News, where I found this gem: a photomicrograph of Japanese paper, by Charles Kazilek of Arizona State, one of the ten best microscope photographs chosen by Nikon this year.

Kazilek studies "both the art and science of fine papermaking" and also teaches a class in scientific data presentation. (Nice to know I'm not the only geek with those overlapping interests.) What makes this so interesting to me is the apparently chaotic organization of the paper fibers. This is Sugikawa (cedar bark) & Tenjyo paper, and you can see here the lack of "grain" that characterizes handmade paper. Machine-made paper has a far more orderly fiber structure, which allows it to be torn easily along that grain. This is what gives Japanese paper its strength, even when it's tissue-fine: there's no grain for a tear to follow, and no inherent weakness. The stronger those fibers are in themselves, the stronger a chaotic web of them will be. To give you an idea of how densely woven these fibers are, this is a 100x image of an area no larger than a period.

By the way, these aren't the actual colors of the paper itself. The photo was taken with a scanning laser confocal  microscope, which makes certain materials fluoresce in colors not their own. The scanning part means that, like an MRI, it can produce 3D images of whatever it's looking at, even if that object, like paper, appears two dimensional.*

Nikon chose another of Kazilek's paper micrographs as an image of distinction in 2007, this one of kozo/mulberry paper. Both of these images are from The Paper Project, which also has a lovely gallery.

*If you'd like a more sciency version of this post that talks about hydrogen bonding and electron microscopes, check out my new post on Cocktail Party Physics.

Comments

[Roger]

I don't know a lot about paper except my memory of the bad smells that come from paper mills. Macon, GA has one, and that is where I spent my college years. I was wondering though about the use of cotton and other fabrics in paper. I know it makes a heavier stock, but what other reason is there for combining paper and fabric?

[Lee Kottner]

You're right, Roger; commercial papermaking is often a really smelly operation, in part because they "cook" the fibers and in part because of the additives and bleaching. A lot of commercial paper is made from wood pulp, which is highly acidic and quickly goes yellow and brittle from the acid. This is the stock that paperback publishers and newspapers use. Cotton rags are used because they're not acidic and can last for centuries. Most "archival" paper is cotton rags. It doesn't just make heavier stock, it makes better, stronger paper, and holds the ink better. When you're printing letterpress work, it also has what printers call a good "tooth" meaning you get a little impression from the type too. Check out the Cocktail Party Physics post for a little more scientific info on paper contents, and a good video about hand making paper.