If you’re someone who surfs the Internet, you’ve probably read a thing or two about how many times a sheet of paper can be folded. Usually on the internet every kaThe paper can be folded up to 7 times, It is written that nothing more is possible. How accurate is this information? Can we really fold the paper a maximum of 7 times, regardless of size?

Although this information has been circulating on the Internet for a long time We can say that it is not entirely true. The most commonly used paper size in the world is A-size paper. Of these, A4 paper with a size of 21 x 29.7 cm is best known. Papers of this and similar sizes can be folded up to 7 times depending on their size.

If we look at it from this perspectiveA4 paperCards can be folded a maximum of 7 times.but as the size of the paper increases, the number of folds will continue to increase.

Come on will help us understand the madness of mathematics Let’s clarify how many times a sheet of paper can be folded.

Why is it difficult to fold a sheet of paper?

Actually, folding a piece of paper is not difficult. Things only get complicated when math is involved. Because As you know from exponential numbers, small numbers are the sameBecause they continue to reproduce themselves, as when folding paper, they can form very large numbers.

on this point Imagine you have paper that is 0.1mm thick. When you start folding this paper you won’t have any problems with it at first, but after a while it will start to bother you as the paper gets thicker.

The thickness you get when you fold a sheet of paper 7 times of 128 pages will be equal to its thickness. After you have reached this thickness, you cannot fold an A4 paper any further.

At this point you may be thinking of a pressing machine, but A4 paperAttempting to fold the paper more than 7 times will damage the paperYour paper will not be able to withstand the internal stress and will fall apart.

Increasing the size of your paper allows you to fold it more often. The Mythbusters team, who conducted a test on this point, A field the size of a football fieldHe managed to fold the paper eleven times.

If we look at the record in this area, in 2002, Britney Gallivan, a high school student in California, broke a very large sheet of paper with her own mathematical formula. He managed to fold it 12 times. Gallivan, who preferred other methods instead of tearing 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. 0.1mm Let’s take the paper of the same thickness and imagine that we keep folding it without any restrictions.

In the paper folding experiment, an example of exponential growth 0.1mm thick paperIf we fold our paper 25 timesThe thickness of the paper will be 1 kilometer.

Let’s say we want to continue after we’ve folded it 25 times. We continued folding and folding our paper overall. We folded it 42 times. kaWe have reached a thickness that allows us to reach the moon with one end of our paper, while the other end is on the Earth.

Of course, let’s not stop here. Let’s fold the paper 9 more times, making a total of 51 folds. The thickness of our paper is so great that It reached our sun. Since we are excited, we assume that our paper is not burned.

Fold our paper 39 more times to make a total of Let’s fold it 90 times. In such a situationThe thickness of our plate will be exactly 130.8 million light years. The significance of this thickness is equal to the size of the constellation Virgo, which contains a total of 100 galaxies, including the Milky Way.

Does our journey end here? Of course not. If we folded it 90 times, what would happen if we folded it 13 more 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 what the limits are, even if it is not possible, far beyond what folding paper seven times can do. Mathematics is full of strange and incredible things.

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