(Unsplash / Mahen Rin)

If you’ve ever worked with paper, chances are that you’ve experienced it at least once in your life. A paper cut, the sharp burning sensation as it tears through your flesh, leaving behind in its wake a crimson canyon. Well, maybe not that extreme but, it still hurts like scratching a blackboard, constant and agonizingly sharp.  

But why do paper cuts hurt so much when compared to other cuts. Strangely enough, to answer that you must first go back to the basics, what is paper? 

Paper, one of humanities greatest inventions. The thin sheets of tree, made from tree pulp pressed and dried with added chemicals and dye. We’re not here to learn how paper is made so that’s all your getting, what’s important about this is that paper is not made of one fine material it’s made of lots of materials meshed which on a microscopic level result in a rough edge. Because of this rough edge when compared to a cut done with a knife, a paper cut results in a messy cut as opposed to how a knife makes a clean cut. Adding on, paper will leave behind tiny fibres and chemical residues resulting in even more irritation. 

But that’s not all, where is it that you most often get paper cuts? The answer is simple: your fingers. Now what’s so special about your fingers, well a lot of things. The simple answer is the number of nerves located in your fingers is a lot higher than say you back or your legs. This is because fingers have a job of feeling things and thus humans developed more nerves in the places that matter. It’s thanks to this amazing feat of evolution that paper cuts so much. 

And last but, not least. Supposedly, a paper cut is deep enough that it pierces the outer skin layer that doesn’t have pain receptors, but shallow enough to not draw blood. Now why does this matter, it matters as it breaks into the part of your body that does have pain receptors which will now be triggered by the exposure to the outside world, however no blood comes out to clot the wound. If blood could come out, it would clot the wound effectively closing it off from the outside world, allowing the pain to be less intense. Unfortunately, paper cuts are just the perfect depth for maximum pain, so we must resort to applying a bandage to protect the wound from exposure. 

Taking everything, we’ve learned so far. It looks like paper cuts are the perfect storm for a painful cut, from the jagged edge, to targeting your weak points, and hitting the perfect depth to inflict just enough damage to have the most pain possible.  

Now you know why paper cuts hurt so much, hopefully you’ll never have to encounter another paper cut in your life, but if you do, at least you know why it hurts like crazy. 

Written by: Matthew Lin 

Contact: mlin114@my.bcit.ca