No piece of paper can be folded in half more than seven times
At my new favorite restaurant, Cafe 50’s, I picked up its newsletter because there was a bunch of random facts on it. For example:
- The liquid inside young coconuts can be used as a substitute for blood plasma.
- No piece of paper can be folded in half more than seven times.
That second fact got me thinking, why can’t you fold a piece of paper more than seven times? I tried folding a piece of paper on my desk, but I only folded it five times.
So, I thought there’s probably some mathematical reason why it’s impossible. If I started off with a 10″ x 10″ square piece of paper, the paper surface would decrease as follows:
- 1st fold: 5″ x 10″
- 2nd fold: 5″ x 5″
- 3rd fold: 2.5″ x 5″
- 4th fold: 2.5″ x 2.5″
- 5th fold: 1.25 x 2.5″
- 6th fold: 1.25″ x 1.25″
- 7th fold: .625″ x 1.25″
I don’t know where these calculations are going. Basically, they don’t take into account the three-dimensional nature of the paper. I guess that’s it—nature has determined that paper shall not fold more than seven times.
That’s all I have to say about this subject.
24 June 2007 – 10:00 PM