Paper folding

Saturday, 17 April 2010 16:07 | Written by Administrator |

Somebody once told me that if you were to fold a piece of paper in half, and in half again and repeat until you'd folded it eight times then the height would reach to the moon. I said that it was totally ridiculous, but then I got curious and wanted to work out how many folds it would actually take. The answer was more than eight, but not very much more!

Folds	Distance (mm)	Distance (km)	Height comparison
1	0.2	0.00000020
2	0.4	0.00000040
3	0.8	0.00000080
4	1.6	0.00000160
5	3.2	0.00000320
6	6.4	0.00000640
7	12.8	0.00001280
8	25.6	0.00002560
9	51.2	0.00005120
10	102.4	0.00010240
11	204.8	0.00020480
12	409.6	0.00040960
13	819.2	0.00081920
14	1638.4	0.00163840
15	3276.8	0.00327680
16	6553.6	0.00655360
17	13107.2	0.01310720
18	26214.4	0.02621440
19	52428.8	0.05242880
20	104857.6	0.10485760
21	209715.2	0.20971520
22	419430.4	0.41943040
23	838860.8	0.83886080
24	1677722	1.67772160
25	3355443	3.35544320
26	6710886	6.7
27	13421773	13.4	Mt Everest (8.84800 km)
28	26843546	26.9
29	53687091	53.7
30	1.07E+08	107.4	rmán line (100 km)
31	2.15E+08	214.8
32	4.29E+08	429.5
33	8.59E+08	858.99
34	1.72E+09	1,718
35	3.44E+09	3,436
36	6.87E+09	6,871.9
37	1.37E+10	13,743.9
38	2.75E+10	27,487.8
39	5.5E+10	54,975.9
40	1.1E+11	109,951.2
41	2.2E+11	219,902.3
42	4.4E+11	439,804.7	The Moon (384,403 km)
43	8.8E+11	879,609.3
44	1.76E+12	1,759,218.6
45	3.52E+12	3,518,437.2
46	7.04E+12	7,036,874.4
47	1.41E+13	14,073,748.8
48	2.81E+13	28,147,497.7
49	5.63E+13	56,294,995.3
50	1.13E+14	112,589,990.7	The Sun (149,597,871 km)
51	2.25E+14	225,179,981.4