How many times can you actually fold a piece of paper? Student busts myth

A high school student shattered the myth that it’s impossible to fold a piece of paper more than eight times.

Britney Gallivan (USA) was challenged by her calculus teacher to fold a single piece of paper in half 12 times back in 2001.

It took some serious mathematic calculations, but the clever student uncovered the secret.

With a piece of tissue paper that was 4,000 ft (1,219 m; 0.75 miles) long, Britney broke the record for most times to fold a piece of paper with a total of 12.

Explaining her process, she said: “Have you ever heard the commonly accepted belief that no one can fold a piece of paper – or anything – in half more than eight times?

“Back in 2001, my honours pre-calculus instructor challenged anyone in the class to fold anything in half 12 times.”

In our video, Britney demonstrates folding a small piece of paper, which goes in half six times.

She then pulls out a piece of gold foil that’s 4 in x 4 in (10.16 cm x 10.16 cm) and is 11 millionth of an inch thin.

“It’s actually thinner than the wavelength of visible light,” she says.

Britney folded this gold foil in half 12 times.

She added: “My teacher stated that he had misspoken and that the challenge was actually to fold any piece of paper in half 12 times.

“The paper folding challenge is often used as an example of exponential growth – if you fold paper in half 50 times you could reach the sun.”

Read more stories about super smart record holders on our Science and Technology News page.

She explained how the radius section of the paper squares, rather than doubles, every time a piece of paper is folded, which is what makes it so difficult to fold it so many times.

Britney said: “As your number of folds increases, you need four times the length to achieve the next fold.”

She came up with two equations for folding – one for a single direction and one for folding in alternate directions.

Britney researched online to find a piece of paper that was long and thin enough to work, according to her equations.

She also found a building with a long enough corridor to lay the paper out.

She said: “After eight hours of crawling on the floor, I was able to successfully fold the paper in half 12 times.”

She added: “It’s great to be in the record books and to finally set the paper-folding record straight.

“I hope that others can look at this challenge and take it on themselves and maybe even expand on it and take on their own impossible challenges.”

Britney has written a book, How to Fold Paper in Half Twelve Times.