illuminating science

You mave have heard the statement that you can’t fold a piece of paper more than 8 times. Supposedly, it makes no difference how big or how thin the paper is - for some reason, it’s a Law of Nature! This always struck me as highly unlikely - after all, when the paper gets too small, I could imagine having started with a sheet a hundred times bigger, and effectively “zooming” in on this piece, giving me more room to keep folding. So I thought I’d do some more exploring.

It turns out that this problem was solved by Britney Gallivan, a high school student from California. Not only did she find the actual equations that give the maximum number of folds for a given piece of paper, but she demonstrated that you really can fold more than eight times, by folding a kilometre long piece of toilet paper 12 times!

This just goes to show that you shouldn’t take everything you’re told on faith, and that anyone can discover something new!