Paper folding

**NorthernSoul** · 28th January 2009, 05:54 PM

I'm sure most people here have head that you can only fold a piece of paper in half 7 times, irrelevant of its thickness or size. I'm also sure most of you know that this isn't actually true, there is some way to fold paper in half up to 12 times...anyone know how?

**Mulder** · 28th January 2009, 06:03 PM

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paper_folding

**NorthernSoul** · 28th January 2009, 06:07 PM

I'm afraid I read the wiki and one of the source pages, and just didn't get it, if anyone could explain in laymens terms...

**chaggle** · 28th January 2009, 06:42 PM

Paper folding

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Paper folding is the art of folding paper;

Don'tcha just love wikipedia

**lost thought** · 28th January 2009, 06:47 PM

That was on Q.I a few weeks ago, this will need some one with a faster connection to find. can't rember if it was on the new series on bbc or repeats on dave.
A maths guru did a calc then showed how to do this, you need very thin paper, longer than it is wide. I'll check tonight when I get home at 1am.

**FarSideOfTheMoon** · 28th January 2009, 06:56 PM

Originally Posted by lost thought

That was on Q.I a few weeks ago, this will need some one with a faster connection to find. can't rember if it was on the new series on bbc or repeats on dave.
A maths guru did a calc then showed how to do this, you need very thin paper, longer than it is wide. I'll check tonight when I get home at 1am.

That must be where I saw it as well.

**Trinoc** · 28th January 2009, 07:30 PM

If QI (and my memory) are to be believed, folding 12 times was achieved by starting with a very long strip of paper (an industrial sized toilet roll, perhaps?) and only folding longitudinally.

When the Mythbusters tried it, they decided that the spirit of the myth was to fold alternately lengthways and sideways. They pasted together a sheet of paper the size of the floor of a fair sized warehouse, and managed to fold it 11 times. It involved fork lifts and mechanical rollers to achieve the last couple of folds, though.

**lost thought** · 28th January 2009, 07:35 PM

Originally Posted by Trinoc

If QI (and my memory) are to be believed, folding 12 times was achieved by starting with a very long strip of paper (an industrial sized toilet roll, perhaps?) and only folding longitudinally.

When the Mythbusters tried it, they decided that the spirit of the myth was to fold alternately lengthways and sideways. They pasted together a sheet of paper the size of the floor of a fair sized warehouse, and managed to fold it 11 times. It involved fork lifts and mechanical rollers to achieve the last couple of folds, though.

Perhaps they could have got the 12th fold if I sat on it..

Being awkward but, you can of course only fold one in half once then once in quater then an eighth then 16th then a 32nd ......

**Matt** · 28th January 2009, 07:55 PM

Thin gold foil can be folded many time. The impresive thing about the maths Guru was that she's a child.

QI have an excelent forum where it's bound to have been discussed.

Hold it a moment. Here we go

http://www.qi.com/talk/viewtopic.php?p=34111

**NorthernSoul** · 28th January 2009, 08:37 PM

Can anyone explain, again in stupid person terms, why folding it in only one direction makes any difference what so ever? (just tried this with a regular A4 sheet and it didn't seem to make it any easier)

**Trinoc** · 28th January 2009, 09:58 PM

Originally Posted by NorthernSoul

Can anyone explain, again in stupid person terms, why folding it in only one direction makes any difference what so ever? (just tried this with a regular A4 sheet and it didn't seem to make it any easier)

The limiting factor seems to be the corner where the two directions of fold meet. If you get rid of that by only folding one way then you can possible get one more fold ... but of course you need a really long strip of paper otherwise you will get stymied by it getting ridiculously short instead.

Try unrolling as much toilet roll or kitchen roll as can fit on the floor, then fold that. If you can get hold of a roll of the horrible, thin, wax paper bog roll we had to use back in the old days, that might make it even easier. If your starting number of sheets is a power of 2 than you can maximise the number of folds which will be along perforations.