Fold It in Half

Exponential thickness

An interactive lesson with 6 steps, about 5 minutes: you predict, drag and solve, with instant feedback on every answer. It runs in your browser and needs JavaScript.

What you’ll learn

• Folding doubles thickness: $n$ folds multiply it by $2^n$.
• 42 folds of paper would reach past the Moon.
• Real folding is limited by the paper length lost in each curved fold.

Steps

1. To the Moon
2. Taller than Everest
3. The real limit
4. Gallivan’s formula
5. Seven folds
6. Folding to the Sun