Do you know: a 103-fold piece of paper would be as thick as the ... universe

Fold the paper in half and keep doing so will be much harder than we thought. The current record is 12 folds, made more than a decade ago by an American high school student, Britney Gallivan. Earlier records were only seven times, and according to mathematical theory, you could not fold more than that.

If you fold a piece of 0.099mm thick paper 103 times, the thickness of the paper will be larger than the universe.

This phenomenon is based on an increase in the thickness of a sheet when it folds in half - each time its thickness doubles and requires more energy to fold it. Dr. Karl Kruszelnicki performed some ABC Science Online operations with a standard A4 paper, about 300mm long and 0.05mm thick:

"The first time you fold it in half, it will be 150mm long and 0.1mm thick, the second is 75mm long and 0.2mm thick. Go to the 8th time (if you can get there), you have a piece of paper 1.25mm long, 12.8mm thick, thicker than the length, and with a steel-like structure, you can hardly bend it to fold it again. "

But what if you continue? On his YouTube channel, Nikola Slavkovic analyzed and concluded: If you fold a piece of paper 0.099mm thick 103 times, the thickness of the paper will be larger than the universe we can observe: 93 billion years light , exactly.

Of course this assumes you can find a piece of paper big enough and you have enough energy to fold it.

Jesus Diaz said on Gizmodo page:

• "Fold the sheets of paper three times, then the thickness of the nail.
• 10 folds and paper will be as thick as the width of a hand.
• 23 times you will reach one kilometer.
• 30 times will take you out into space. Your paper block will be 100km high.
• Just continue to fold, 42 times will take you to the Moon.
• Folded up to 81 times, and your paper will be 127786 light years thick, almost the Andromeda Galaxy.
• And finally there are 103 folds, you will be outside the universe that we can observe, estimated about 93 billion light-years in diameter. "