How many times can you fold a piece of paper?

Question

I managed 6 times but I think there is a limit regards of the size you start with

Answer 1

There is no hard and fast limit. Anyone who tells you otherwise is parroting an urban myth, propagated by the fact that most people who test this use a garden-variety 8 1/2 x 11" sheet of paper, or something similar.

The limit, (there is one, but it varies,) is dependent on the paper you use and it's thickness, vs. it's width and length. It was worked out by a high school student:

http://pomonahistorical.org/12times.htm

She managed to fold tissue paper 12 times, using toilet paper. If you can come up with a thinner, longer sheet of paper, (it'd have to be twice as long for the same thickness,) you could get 13 times if you really wanted to.

The reason everyone says 6, 7 or 8, is because once you get around those numbers, the required size of the sheet of paper gets REALLY big, and who has a 20 foot wide square of paper lying around? Take a look at the formula: The required length of the paper as a function of the number of folds is dominated by the term: 2^(2n) where n is the number of folds. That means to get one more fold out of a piece of paper, you have to quadruple the length.

Mythbusters looked at this in Episode 72: Underwater Car, (obviously not the title piece:)

http://dsc.discovery.com/fansites/mythbusters/episode/episode_02.html

Answer 2

well you stupid lot
natasha is the only one here with the right answer
if you fold paper like a concertina you can fold paper as many times as you can before running out of paper
(millions even if you have a big enough sheet and use small concertina folds )

the question everyone has answered is
how many times can a piece of paper be folded IN HALF
the answer to which is determined by the above mentioned equation but usually acceptyed as eight because after that the amount of pressure required to fold for the ninth time is practically impossible to apply regardless of any equation which theoretically makes it possible
here is a little test for you to try

start with one sheet
1fold =2 sheets
2fold = 4 sheet etc
8 fold=256 sheets

find a paperback with 256 sheets or 512 pages then try to fold that in half

Answer 3

I am not sure how many times you can fold a piece of paper because there are many ways to do so, but I am pretty sure you can only fold a piece of paper in half seven times.

Answer 4

6 or 8

Answer 5

It's about 7 or 8 for normal paper, but I'm pretty sure it depends on the size and thinness of the paper. I've heard a rumor (I don't know if it's true) that some kid folded one 12 times.

Answer 6

The limit to this is the properties of paper;at the bending crease the inside of the bend has a small radius and,as you know this bend makes a permanent crease as a result of paper fibres being torn on the outside of the bend and buckled on the inside.This goes on the more as you increase the bend radius by folding.Paper is a brittle material and cannot really be folded at all without permanent and increasing damage.Gold and soft metals can be doubled without practical limits because metals can stretch and compress as needed and the metal will resoften.So people who set such"posers"ought to be able to propose a solution before 'posing'.

Answer 7

7

Answer 8

The limit is based on the thickness of the paper to the area. Each fold doubles the thickness (t) and halves the area (A), so after n folds, the stack is t 2^n and the area is A 2^(-n). There is no limit, but aditional folds require a significant increase in area or decrease in thickness.

Answer 9

It doesnt matter what size paper you use, you cant fold a piece of paper more that 7 times

Answer 10

7 I think.

Now, interesting fact:

IF you could go on folding the paper (which you can't) you would only have to fold it 44 or 45 times for the thickness to reach the moon. You do the maths...