Wowsome fact: "If you could fold a piece of paper 42 times, it would reach the moon" Simple Maths, but tough to relate to this fact considering that the thickness of an average paper sheet is 0.01 cm and distance of moon from earth is 384,000 kilometers!. Here is the proof: Let the thickness of paper be x On every fold ,the thickness of resulting paper will be 2 times Therefore for 42 folds thickness becomes (2^42) times x Assuming x to be 0.01 cm , (2^42) times x becomes roughly 439,804 km. And distance of moon from earth is 384,000 km. Since we are in the realm of the hypothetical, consider also this: With each fold, the area of the paper becomes half. Suppose we started with a 10 cm x 10 cm paper, and assume that we keep folding it along length and breadth alternately (so after 42 folds, it retains its square shape). At the end, each dimension would be reduced by a factor of 2^21, so the final dimensions of the paper would be 47.7 nm x 47.7 nm. For comparison, an HIV virus has a diameter of 120 nm. So you would get a piece of paper that reaches all the way to the moon, but you would need an electron microscope to observe it!
Posted on: Sat, 29 Jun 2013 02:18:40 +0000
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