how many times can you fold paper

How many times can you fold paper? How about 13?

Students Attempt To Fold Paper 13 Times

Doesn’t paper folded enough times create a stack that reaches to the moon?  Well it doesn’t here. However you would need a suitcase to carry it around if you wanted to protect yourself against being taken short. (It is toilet paper after all.) The students at St. Mark’s School in Southborough, Massachusetts asked, “how many times can you fold paper?” They went on to break the record (considered at the time to be 12) by using over 50,000 feet of toilet paper. See this video from the New Scientist YouTube Channel below:

Students at St. Mark’s School in Southborough, Massachusetts, make their attempt on 15th March 2012.

Britney Gallivan Talks About Her Attempt To Fold Paper

Since I first published this post in 2012 there has been further attempts to get as many folds as possible. The one below was entered in the Guinness Book of Records apparently. But it only involves 12 folds. In the video below Ms Gallivan shows paper with 11 folds. She does however bring mathematics into it with a couple of formulae for calculating the length of paper required, depending on how the folds are made.

Britney Gallivan gets her attempt into The Guinness Book of Records in 2018.

See more interesting articles in New Scientist Magazine.


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