evidence-strength is one function. Everything below came out of it during this
build, at arguments taken from the essays rather than invented for this page — so a figure
here is the same figure a reader meets in an essay, and when the generator changes, this
page changes with it.
At its defaults
What each claim rests on The record grouped by what kind of thing its oldest source is, strongest first, with one dot per independent surviving source. The claims resting on a single source are marked, and they are a third of the table — which is the honest statement of how much of this field's dating is one document away from being unsupported. 15 claims · 5 resting on one source artefact a surviving folded object, or a picture of one made at the time Paper is made in Europe 1056 The pajarita is folded in Spain 1793 manuscript a hand-written document that survives Folded paper is used ceremonially in Japan 1600 Paper reaches Japan 720 one source printed a printed book or paper with a publication date Paper folding is taught as geometry 1838 The conditions at a flat-foldable vertex 1979 The Miura fold 1970 The diamond pattern in a crushed cylinder 1951 The dashed-and-dotted diagram notation 1954 Any straight-line drawing, from one straight cut 1998 Paper is folded for amusement in Japan 1680 one source The thousand cranes 1797 one source One fold solves a cubic 1936 one source secondary somebody later reporting it, with no surviving primary source Paper is made in China 105 A five-pointed star from one straight cut 1873 one source a source is dated; it is not thereby right this ranks what a source can bear, not what it says
only: [paper-japan, recreational-folding, senbazuru, beloch, one-cut-star, froebel, ceremonial-wrapping]What each claim rests on The record grouped by what kind of thing its oldest source is, strongest first, with one dot per independent surviving source. The claims resting on a single source are marked, and they are a third of the table — which is the honest statement of how much of this field's dating is one document away from being unsupported. 7 claims · 5 resting on one source manuscript a hand-written document that survives Folded paper is used ceremonially in Japan 1600 Paper reaches Japan 720 one source printed a printed book or paper with a publication date Paper folding is taught as geometry 1838 Paper is folded for amusement in Japan 1680 one source The thousand cranes 1797 one source One fold solves a cubic 1936 one source secondary somebody later reporting it, with no surviving primary source A five-pointed star from one straight cut 1873 one source a source is dated; it is not thereby right this ranks what a source can bear, not what it says
only: [pajarita, one-cut-star, senbazuru, froebel]What each claim rests on The record grouped by what kind of thing its oldest source is, strongest first, with one dot per independent surviving source. The claims resting on a single source are marked, and they are a third of the table — which is the honest statement of how much of this field's dating is one document away from being unsupported. 4 claims · 2 resting on one source artefact a surviving folded object, or a picture of one made at the time The pajarita is folded in Spain 1793 printed a printed book or paper with a publication date Paper folding is taught as geometry 1838 The thousand cranes 1797 one source secondary somebody later reporting it, with no surviving primary source A five-pointed star from one straight cut 1873 one source a source is dated; it is not thereby right this ranks what a source can bear, not what it says
only: nullWhat each claim rests on The record grouped by what kind of thing its oldest source is, strongest first, with one dot per independent surviving source. The claims resting on a single source are marked, and they are a third of the table — which is the honest statement of how much of this field's dating is one document away from being unsupported. 15 claims · 5 resting on one source artefact a surviving folded object, or a picture of one made at the time Paper is made in Europe 1056 The pajarita is folded in Spain 1793 manuscript a hand-written document that survives Folded paper is used ceremonially in Japan 1600 Paper reaches Japan 720 one source printed a printed book or paper with a publication date Paper folding is taught as geometry 1838 The conditions at a flat-foldable vertex 1979 The Miura fold 1970 The diamond pattern in a crushed cylinder 1951 The dashed-and-dotted diagram notation 1954 Any straight-line drawing, from one straight cut 1998 Paper is folded for amusement in Japan 1680 one source The thousand cranes 1797 one source One fold solves a cubic 1936 one source secondary somebody later reporting it, with no surviving primary source Paper is made in China 105 A five-pointed star from one straight cut 1873 one source a source is dated; it is not thereby right this ranks what a source can bear, not what it says
What it checked while it drew
Collected by running this generator with a listener on the assertions, not written here.
The count is how many separate times this build put that claim to the test.
every claim dated earlier than its own earliest evidence says why — 8 of them ×6
5 of 15 claims rest on exactly one surviving source — 33% of those shown ×5
every entry in the record names a dated source of a stated kind — 15 checked ×5
the record draws on 4 of the 5 kinds of source, from a surviving artefact down to an inference ×3
Where it is called
Changing this generator changes every figure on this list, which is what makes the list
worth publishing rather than keeping in a check script.
A record is not a proof
Every other claim here can be re-derived from the figure that makes it, and a wrong one shows. A date cannot: it is checked once, by hand, against a record that is itself a survivor. This field is the one most likely to be wrong and least likely to be caught, and saying so is the only defence it has.
Nothing here is as old as it sounds
Paper folding is described everywhere as an ancient art. The oldest surviving book of it was printed in 1797, the oldest reference to folding for amusement is from 1680, and the median claim in this subject is dated two centuries before anything that attests it.
The cure was named first
A heavy-tailed search runtime, the arithmetic for cutting it off and restarting, and the reason restarts work at all were established in the study of search between 1993 and 1998. This collection imported all three, and inherited with them the phenomenon they answer — which is that randomising a search's choices is what makes the tail.
Two traditions and a merge
Ceremonial wrapping, recreational folding and the kindergarten syllabus are three separate lineages with three separate purposes, and they were independent until the late nineteenth century. Told as one continuous tradition, the oldest date in any of them becomes the age of all three.
When two of them are first attested together
Every single date in this field is argued about by centuries, and a pairwise one is not. The earliest year at which two claims are both attested is simply the later of their two surviving sources, so it inherits the better-attested half of each pair rather than the worse — and the year at which all five lineages of practice are jointly on the record is 1838, one year from where the same claims are popularly dated together.
Every generator ·
The who found it, and when field ·
The patterns a reader can fold