If you’re a web blogger, you’ve probably read a few things about how many times a piece of paper can be folded. It is generally written on the Internet that any paper can be folded up to 7 times, and that more is not possible. So, how accurate is this information? Can we really fold the paper no more than 7 times, regardless of size?
Although this information has been circulating on the internet for a very long time, we can say that it is not entirely correct. The most used paper size in the world is A format papers. Among them, A4 paper with a size of 21 x 29.7 cm is the most famous. These and similar sizes of paper can be folded up to 7 times according to their own size.
From this point of view, it is true that A4 papers can be folded 7 times at most, but when the size of the paper increases, the number of folds will continue to increase. Let’s clarify how many times a piece of paper can be folded, which will help us understand the madness of math.
Why is it difficult to fold a sheet of paper?
It’s actually not difficult to fold a sheet of paper. It’s only when math gets involved that things get messy. Because, as you know from exponential numbers, small numbers can create very large numbers as they continue to be multiplied by themselves, just like in paper folding.
At this point, imagine you have a sheet of paper 0.1 mm thick. When you start folding this paper, you will not have any difficulty at first, but after a while, the paper will start to force you as it will thicken. When you fold a sheet of paper 7 times, the thickness you will get will be equivalent to the thickness of 128 sheets. After reaching this thickness, you could not fold an A4 size paper any more. At this point, you may think of a press machine, but if you try to fold A4 paper more than 7 times, your paper will fall apart, unable to withstand the internal stress.
If you increase the size of your paper, you can fold the paper more times. At this point, the Mythbusters team, which made a test, managed to fold a football field-sized paper 11 times. When we look at the record in this field, Britney Gallivan, a high school student in California in 2002, was able to fold a very large paper 12 times thanks to her own mathematical formula. Gallivan, who preferred different methods instead of dividing the paper in half, entered the Guinness Book of Records with this success.
How thick can you achieve by folding the paper?
Now let’s do a thought experiment. Let’s take the paper with a thickness of 0.1 mm and imagine that we continue to fold without any restrictions. In the paper folding experiment, which is an example of exponential growth, when we fold our 0.1 mm thick paper 25 times, the thickness of the paper will be 1 kilometer.
Let’s say we want to continue with 25 folds. We continued to fold and fold our paper 42 times in total. While one end of our paper is on Earth, we have reached such a thickness that we can reach the other end to the Moon. Of course, let’s not stop here. Let’s fold the paper 9 more times and fold it 51 times in total. The thickness of our paper is so great that it reached our Sun. Since we’re in a hurry, let’s assume that our paper is not burned here.
Let’s fold our paper 39 more times and fold it 90 times in total. In such a case, the thickness of our paper will be exactly 130.8 million light years. This thickness means the size of the Virgo Constellation, which contains a total of 100 galaxies, including the Milky Way.
Is our journey over here; of course no. What would happen if we folded it 13 more times when we’ve already folded it 90 times? When we fold it for the 103rd time, the thickness of our paper reaches 93 billion light years, which is considered the diameter of the observable universe. This thought experiment helps us understand far beyond what paper can be folded 7 times, what the limits, if not possible, are. Mathematics is full of strange and unbelievable things.
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