Today's random fact

[Fritzo]

Originally posted by: Barack Obama
Umm the flaw here is that you guys are assuming thats there infinite amount of paper to fold. there is only so many atoms in a piece of paper and even if u line them all up they will be nowhere near the estimates you guys are calculating. FTL.

The flaw is in your reading:

if you COULD keep folding a piece of paper in half indefinately, it would grow to astronomic heights:

 

[ShadowOfMyself]

Yep this is pretty stupid, you would need infinite paper

If you could eat oranges forever, you could also grow to astronomical heights.. so whats the point? -.-

 

[Safeway]

Originally posted by: ShadowOfMyself
Yep this is pretty stupid, you would need infinite paper

With infinite paper, you could fold it infinitely ... unless the infinity produced by folding is larger than the infinity of the paper. Which is possible.

 

[RESmonkey]

I love ATOT.

 

[JJChicken]

Originally posted by: Fritzo
The flaw is in your reading:

if you COULD keep folding a piece of paper in half indefinately, it would grow to astronomic heights:

I read that as you have a piece of paper and you can keep folding it. Normally, after a certain number of folds it gets difficult to keep folding, cause our stupid fat fingers, so I read that as you can keep folding "A" piece of paper. 1 piece of paper, not infinite... If it's infinite then why do you need to fold at all?

 

[Ika]

Originally posted by: ShadowOfMyself
Yep this is pretty stupid, you would need infinite paper

If you could eat oranges forever, you could also grow to astronomical heights.. so whats the point? -.-

The point is to show how quickly folded paper grows in thickness.

 

[Fritzo]

Originally posted by: RESmonkey
I love ATOT.

Heheh...don't you though? Where else can you go, rattle off a fun fact, and have nerds come out of the closet to pick it apart to show how it's not true. If it can't be proved wrong, it's a stupid fact to begin with.

 

[JJChicken]

Originally posted by: Fritzo

Originally posted by: RESmonkey
I love ATOT.

Heheh...don't you though? Where else can you go, rattle off a fun fact, and have nerds come out of the closet to pick it apart to show how it's not true. If it can't be proved wrong, it's a stupid fact to begin with.

 

[Kelemvor]

Originally posted by: GagHalfrunt
The Mythbusters made it 11 folds, others have done more.

Yeah but once they got that high it wasn't really a fold since they couldn't crease the corner. Was more like just rolled up.

 

[alkemyst]

Originally posted by: bGIveNs33

Originally posted by: MegaVovaN
I don't get it. When you fold paper, it gets smaller. Huh?

WTF you confused about? It definitely gets 'smaller' but thicker at the same time.

 

[TanisHalfElven]

this is some dumb shit right here.
but as a nerd i'll just say cool.

 

[n7]

Originally posted by: RESmonkey
I couldn't fold past 6 times. Using regular printer paper here.

Couldn't we just cut the paper at the bends and stack? I'll be we can get a long enough stack going. Who wants to do it? World's tallest stack of a single 8.5"x11" paper.

I failed too.

Couldn't get past six realistically.

 

[manowar821]

THAT'S IT, I'm building a god damn spaceship out of god damn paper.

 

[Fullmetal Chocobo]

Originally posted by: tranceport
Can we fold at home?

:thumbsup: That is exactly what I thought this thread was about.

 

[bunnyfubbles]

Originally posted by: manowar821
THAT'S IT, I'm building a god damn spaceship out of god damn paper.

the japs beat ya to it

 

[Eeezee]

Originally posted by: RESmonkey

Originally posted by: Barack Obama
Umm the flaw here is that you guys are assuming thats there infinite amount of paper to fold. there is only so many atoms in a piece of paper and even if u line them all up they will be nowhere near the estimates you guys are calculating. FTL.

Really? There are a LOT of atoms you know...

at least nuff to reach the sun.

Precisely, you could easily find enough atoms to create a single line to reach the radius of the known universe. You only need *near* infinite lengths of paper (which wouldn't even come close to the number of atoms in the universe). Crazy kids...

 

[JJChicken]

Originally posted by: Eeezee

Originally posted by: RESmonkey

Originally posted by: Barack Obama
Umm the flaw here is that you guys are assuming thats there infinite amount of paper to fold. there is only so many atoms in a piece of paper and even if u line them all up they will be nowhere near the estimates you guys are calculating. FTL.

Really? There are a LOT of atoms you know...

at least nuff to reach the sun.

Precisely, you could easily find enough atoms to create a single line to reach the radius of the known universe. You only need *near* infinite lengths of paper (which wouldn't even come close to the number of atoms in the universe). Crazy kids...

I was saying that you can't achieve this with ONE sheet of paper as would be implied with the OP.

 

[coldmeat]

Originally posted by: Barack Obama

Originally posted by: Eeezee

Originally posted by: RESmonkey

Originally posted by: Barack Obama
Umm the flaw here is that you guys are assuming thats there infinite amount of paper to fold. there is only so many atoms in a piece of paper and even if u line them all up they will be nowhere near the estimates you guys are calculating. FTL.

Really? There are a LOT of atoms you know...

at least nuff to reach the sun.

Precisely, you could easily find enough atoms to create a single line to reach the radius of the known universe. You only need *near* infinite lengths of paper (which wouldn't even come close to the number of atoms in the universe). Crazy kids...

I was saying that you can't achieve this with ONE sheet of paper as would be implied with the OP.

Yes, but anyone with common sense can realize that the OP wasn't referring to just one sheet of 8.5x11 paper.

 

[JJChicken]

Originally posted by: coldmeat

Originally posted by: Barack Obama

Originally posted by: Eeezee

Originally posted by: RESmonkey

Originally posted by: Barack Obama
Umm the flaw here is that you guys are assuming thats there infinite amount of paper to fold. there is only so many atoms in a piece of paper and even if u line them all up they will be nowhere near the estimates you guys are calculating. FTL.

Really? There are a LOT of atoms you know...

at least nuff to reach the sun.

Precisely, you could easily find enough atoms to create a single line to reach the radius of the known universe. You only need *near* infinite lengths of paper (which wouldn't even come close to the number of atoms in the universe). Crazy kids...

I was saying that you can't achieve this with ONE sheet of paper as would be implied with the OP.

Yes, but anyone with common sense can realize that the OP wasn't referring to just one sheet of 8.5x11 paper.

What was he referring to? A "near" infinte amount?

I know what was meant by the OP - folding increases thickness twice on each fold and this is an exponential increase. He was still referring to a piece of paper.

 

[DangerAardvark]

Jesus Christ, the point is that 100 folds intuitively doesn't sound like very much, but the reality is completely the opposite. Moral of the story: science is very frequently counter-intuitive.

 

[ShadowOfMyself]

Actually it does sound like much, considering it multiplies itself each time.. If a virus grew its own size x 100 it would probably become a gigantic monster too.. No matter how small the original amount is, ^100 is alot

 

[Snapster]

Originally posted by: Kelemvor

Originally posted by: GagHalfrunt
The Mythbusters made it 11 folds, others have done more.

Yeah but once they got that high it wasn't really a fold since they couldn't crease the corner. Was more like just rolled up.

That and it can't be standard letter paper, it would have to be thinner.

 

[novasatori]

I was asked this question as a single question quiz in one of my classes.

 

[JJChicken]

Originally posted by: novasatori
I was asked this question as a single question quiz in one of my classes.

What did you answer?

 

[MrFire8808]

rsgfkjg