The Betsy Ross Puzzle
A correspondent asked me to supply him with the solution to an old puzzle that is attributed to a certain Betsy Ross, of Philadelphia, who showed it to George Washington. It consists in so folding a piece of paper that with one clip of the scissors a five-pointed star of Freedom may be produced. Whether the story of the puzzle's origin is a true one or not I cannot say, but I have a print of the old house in Philadelphia where the lady is said to have lived, and I believe it still stands there. But my readers will doubtless be interested in the little poser.
Take a circular piece of paper and so fold it that with one cut of the scissors you can produce a perfect five-pointed star.
Its source prints no answer for this problem, so there's nothing to check against.
H. E. Dudeney, Amusements in Mathematics (1917) · No. 161
No hints for this one.
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