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  • What would happen if you fold a paper 48 times?

    vinod1993

    Member

    Updated: Oct 26, 2024
    Views: 1.1K
    Supposing that you are able to fold a paper equally in half 'n' number of times. What would the size(width) of the paper be if you fold it 48 times.? Give some work to your brain and share your craziest answers here.(It's thickness is one thousandth of a centimetre. Imagine the paper to be a complete page of a Newspaper).
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  • Ankita Katdare

    Administrator • Sep 13, 2012

    I have actually tried that as a school-going kid. I tried folding a newspaper in half as many times as possible. And from what I remember, I couldn't go past the 8th fold. It just became impossible to fold - no matter how large a paper you begin with. 😨
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  • vinod1993

    Member • Sep 13, 2012

    AbraKaDabra
    I have actually tried that as a school-going kid. I tried folding a newspaper in half as many times as possible. And from what I remember, I couldn't go past the 8th fold. It just became impossible to fold - no matter how large a paper you begin with. 😨
    That's just practical. Bravo, You've done 8 folds for the 8th fold is not easily possible to make.😀 I want a theoretical answer.That's why I wanted you to suppose that a paper can be folded 'n' times.
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  • clZazy

    Member • Sep 13, 2012

    let the thickness of the paper is x(which in our case = 1/1000 cm)
    now after first fold it will be doubled, that is = 2x
    in this way thickness would be doubled after every fold.

    x --> 2x --> 4x --> 8x --> 16x....

    this way final width = (2 to the power 48) * x

    = (2^48) * 1/1000 cm
    = 281474976710.656 cm
    or 28,14,749 km approx

    which is nearly 7 times the distance of the moon from the earth!! 😨

    and that too when we assumed thickness of paper 1/1000 th of a cm, way too less.😉
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  • vinod1993

    Member • Sep 13, 2012

    Excellent. 😀 But it's 8 times the distance of moon from the earth.Anyway an excellent answer.This is called exponential growth.
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  • simplycoder

    Member • Sep 13, 2012

    Its a myth,
    Google up for Britney Galvin...
    she has solved this problem. with a mathematical proof.
    I tried to do the same with a bus ticket, and even the 7th fold was impossible.
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  • Kaustubh Katdare

    Administrator • Sep 13, 2012

    Surprisingly, one can't even fold a piece of cloth beyond 5-6 folds. I tried this so many times ever since I was a kid. Just wondering if there's a mathematical explanation to why this doesn't work?

    Or can we generalize this to the 'max number of folds'? But I can already imagine any malleable material being folded 1000 times. What am I thinking now? 😨
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  • ISHAN TOPRE

    Member • Sep 13, 2012

    "As the number of folds increases, the combined thickness also increases 2^n. where n= number of folds "
    Your answer lie in above statement.
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  • vinod1993

    Member • Sep 13, 2012

    That was what I meant. I wanted you all to suppose that it can be folded this many times. I just wanted you all to imagine. Practically it's impossible. Everyone might have heard about the famous phrase, "No one can fold a paper more than 7 times" But this myth was broken when high schoolers in UK managed to fold a toilet paper 13 times. Yes, a mathematical relation is given by Britney Galvin. You can also take a look at this.
    #-Link-Snipped-#
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  • Anoop Kumar

    Member • Sep 13, 2012

    vinod1993
    Yes, a mathematical relation is given by Britney Galvin. You can also take a look at this.
    #-Link-Snipped-#
    Gallivan was able to fold a single 4,000-foot-long piece 😲 of toilet paper in half 12 times, establishing a new record. She also wrote a book, titled “How to Fold Paper in Half Twelve Times: An ‘Impossible Challenge’ Solved and Explained.”#-Link-Snipped-#

    But this is also uncatogariged as the paper was folded one side only not cross.
    Well impossible challenges created to be break.
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  • Jeffrey Arulraj

    Member • Sep 14, 2012

    arbitrary assumptions can only be done here and no practical feasability in this issue
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