The distance from the earth to the moon is approximately 238,900 miles or 15,133,468,504 inches. If your average sheet of printer paper is 0.005 inches thick. using the formula 0.005(2^x) which calculates the thickness in inches of a folded sheet of paper, we find that you would need to fold the piece of paper 42 times to achieve this distance. This is of course, impossible. Paper will not fold at all past about 8 folds due the thickness of the paper. The actual distance would be longer than that to get to the moon, but 41 folds would leave the paper too "short" to reach the moon. The total distance at the end of the folding is 21,990,232,556 inches. Using the exponential decay function y=100(2^x) (where x equals 42) we can determine that the paper is 0.0000000000227374% of its original width and length. This means that the width of the folded paper is 0.0000000001932679 inches, and the length is 0.0000000002501114 inches. This is of course, impossible. Paper will not fold at all past about 8 folds due the thickness of the paper.
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Daniel CassavaughArchives
November 2015
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