How can you fold a paper 8 times?

To answer this question, we should first take a look at what happens when you fold a piece of paper 8 times:

The theory behind trying to fold paper 8 times

• If you take any piece of paper and fold it, with each fold you make layers on top of each other that at some point make it impossible to fold the paper any further.
• The size of the paper doesn't matter, as you can probably guess. Or should we say better, it doesn't make a difference. The following explanations will explain why.
• If you fold the paper once, you have doubled the area by half, the paper now consists of two layers. Fold twice results in four layers, fold four times 16 layers, if the paper is to be folded 8 times, you would have 256 layers of paper.
• However, these 256 layers gather on an area that has become much smaller due to the folding: the first Folding makes the paper half the size, with the seventh it is already only one 128th as big as that Source paper.
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• You can easily try it out for yourself: If you have a normal thick A4 paper with a weight of 80 grams per Fold the square meter six times, and then you have a kind of thick, immobile lump in your hand that doesn't hold much anymore is to begin.
• The paper has a simple thickness of 0.1 mm, which results in 1.6 mm with the fourth fold, and with the 8th fold. When folded, our paper is already 2.64 cm thick, but very small, to fold it you need quite a lot of force.
• If you now continue to calculate, you will quickly understand why at some point you can no longer fold any further. If we folded, we would have reached a thickness of around 3.3 km!

Fold paper 8 times - this is how it can work

• If you are asked whether you can fold a piece of paper 8 times, you can usually accept it without any worries, because you can simply take advantage of the usually imprecise formulation. As long as the bookmaker doesn't say: “I bet that a piece of paper cannot be folded 8 times in half so that it can be folded at the same time is halved in area ”, simply take a sheet of normal paper and fold it into individual strips like an accordion. You can do this much more often if you make sure that you only fold very narrow strips.
• The next time the betting provider puts it in more detail, you should also listen carefully: If he bets that one now If paper cannot be folded in half 8 times while halving the area, you could still bet on enter. All you need is a long, thin and sturdy roll of paper, e.g. B. a roll of receipts that you would have to roll out at least 100 meters long. And then always fold it lengthways, at 100 meters you would have at the 9th Folding is still about 20 cm long available, that could still work when you fold it down (but should definitely be tried before you bet house and yard).
• This folding is said to have already been tested on a 1.2 km long toilet paper roll, which was allegedly folded 12 times. In addition, mathematicians have determined that this role has a length of approx. 4 km would have to get to a 13. Get folding.
• When your opponent has finally learned it and demands that you fold a square piece of paper in half more than 8 times, halving the area, you always have still chances: this should work if a very thin piece of paper is folded, but it takes up the area of ​​a football field or if a very flexible paper is used, z. B. oiled baking paper. The trick is that with a paper with a very loose fiber structure, the individual paper fibers at Creases can be stretched so they can be pulled around the curve, and then subsequently compress permit. Very thin paper of course also brings a small bonus in terms of thickness, which the whole package reaches, but it does not last very long. Here, too, at most one or two more folds can be achieved, here too: Try it out before you bet on your head and neck!

Because you could just go a little further with the calculation with the thickness that we started above: With our A4 paper with a weight of 80 grams you would need 42 folds, then the folded paper would have reached a thickness from the earth to the moon enough.