Real-world algorithmic question: What is the most efficient way to pop all bubbles on a large sheet of bubble wrap?

You can only use your fingers.

Can I use my fingers to place a big fucking steel plate on top of it?

Edit: or a steam roller.

Fold it over and pop two or more at once

@theuser @Floydian what I meant by only fingers was you can't use a roller, steamroller, needle or other tools

Use fingers to give sheet to the most stressed-out coworker. If scissors are available, use divide & conquer and parallelise with multiple coworkers.

@milkybarkid yea I tried that but then i spent a lot of time trying to pop them... You gotta use like double the force... And the air pocket moves.

@billgates Hm. I wouldn't call coworkers tools. But if you do, you can use the bubble wrap for protection from incoming punches and pop some bubbles

@7400 will it's mostly just for myself. I spent some time this weekend trying to figure out what the most optional way was... Still trying...

Guess this will be a long term project.

First go online and download real world datasets regarding the efficiency of bubble wrap popping with your fingers. Load that up into a a machine learning/big data tool. It will spit out an equation. Take that equation and use it for advertising on a barely profitable web service. Plot the results and correlate it with heart attack data in Europe. Publish your findings and wait until Oprah has you on her show. Spin that off into your own show. Get rich. Outsource your bubble wrap popping to India. Let them figure it out.

Jokes aside, if you don't want to fold it over and only pop a single bubble at a time, the pattern in which you go over the sheet popping bubbles is all you can optimise. There won't be anything better than a meandering pattern.

@7400 yea true though oddly sometimes I have to repop them. The air moves around btwn some bubbles...

Sort of like hit, miss, try again

Lift it with my fingers, Throw it in the fire...