# Folding paper in half **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 29, 2007, 12:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/folding-paper-in-half/402040 "2007-04-29T12:56:57Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Gangster\_Octopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a8b319/32.png) [@Gangster\_Octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gangster_Octopus)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2007, 10:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/folding-paper-in-half/402040/41 "2007-04-30T22:21:07Z")
[QUOTE=ChrisBooth12] You could “fold” a piece of paper in half a hundred times if you wraped it around a needle. That is why i think that their should be a crease in order to be considered a fold. [/QUOTE] How in the world would that be folding a piece of paper in **half**? ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2007, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/folding-paper-in-half/402040/42 "2007-04-30T22:23:32Z")
[QUOTE=Chronos] So, it’s impossible to fold a blanket, then? [/QUOTE] Not in the same sense that paper may be folded, which is probably why paper, not blankets, is used for origami. Thing is, this whole topic was always more semantics than physics. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2007, 10:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/folding-paper-in-half/402040/43 "2007-04-30T22:26:57Z")
[QUOTE=WhyNot] …Merely “bent” would mean that 2n layers are not in a straight line. An L or a V are bent [/QUOTE] So a U is _folded_? ---
**Author:** ![DSYoungEsq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c6cbf5/32.png) [@DSYoungEsq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSYoungEsq)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2007, 12:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/folding-paper-in-half/402040/44 "2007-05-01T00:15:45Z")
**Mangetout** , with respect, the only person who is attempting to make it a semantics exercise is you. And your semantics are, as has been shown, questionable, both from the standpoint of the plain meaning of the word and from the standpoint of logic. Give up while you are behind. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![WhyNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c77e96/32.png) [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2007, 1:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/folding-paper-in-half/402040/45 "2007-05-01T01:40:23Z")
[QUOTE=Mangetout] So a U is _folded_? [/QUOTE] If it’s moved as far as it can go 'cause there’s stuff in it, yes, add that to the definition if it makes you happy. A tortilla is folded around stuff in a U shape to make a taco. ---
**Author:** ![chowder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/977dab/32.png) [@chowder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chowder)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2007, 6:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/folding-paper-in-half/402040/46 "2007-05-01T06:06:02Z")
So what are we agreed on then?. Can a piece of paper, irrespective of size, be folded in half more than 7 times or not? ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2007, 7:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/folding-paper-in-half/402040/47 "2007-05-01T07:03:35Z")
[QUOTE=WhyNot] If it’s moved as far as it can go 'cause there’s stuff in it, yes, add that to the definition if it makes you happy. A tortilla is folded around stuff in a U shape to make a taco. [/QUOTE] Why would you define it as folded simply because there’s something inside it preventing it being creased? Why does that make sense at all? ---
**Author:** ![chowder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/977dab/32.png) [@chowder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chowder)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2007, 8:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/folding-paper-in-half/402040/48 "2007-05-01T08:32:57Z")
[QUOTE=WhyNot] If it’s moved as far as it can go 'cause there’s stuff in it, yes, add that to the definition if it makes you happy. A tortilla is folded around stuff in a U shape to make a taco. [/QUOTE] Surely you mean “Wrapped” around ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2007, 10:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/folding-paper-in-half/402040/49 "2007-05-01T10:20:37Z")
I feel sure that all we’re disagreeing on is the point at which a bend is or is not a fold. Suppose Christo took a very, very long piece of paper and wrapped it three-quarters of the way around [Notre Dame Stadium](http://graphics.fansonly.com/photos/schools/nd/nonsport/facilities/stadium-450w.jpg) - the stadium has two parallel straight sides, so the paper would form a U shape - with 2n straight parallel sections - the paper has moved as far as it can, because it’s folded around the stadium, except, _folded_ really isn’t an appropriate word here, is it? But why not? ---
**Author:** ![chowder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/977dab/32.png) [@chowder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chowder)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2007, 11:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/folding-paper-in-half/402040/50 "2007-05-01T11:42:22Z")
From Chambers: Bend…To force into a bow or out of a curved or angled form. To form or cause a curve. Fold…A doubling of anything upon itself: a crease, a part laid over another. The above among many explanations ---
**Author:** ![Atrael](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Atrael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atrael)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2007, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/folding-paper-in-half/402040/51 "2007-05-01T18:02:16Z")
[QUOTE=Chronos] I dunno, most places I’ve encountered the myth (in person or online) explicitly say “it’s impossible to fold a sheet of paper in half 8 times, no matter how big or how thin the paper is”. [cite](http://educ.queensu.ca/~fmc/june2002/PaperFact.htm), [cite](http://madsci.org/posts/archives/dec2001/1008193783.Ph.q.html), [cite](http://discuss.fogcreek.com/techInterview/default.asp?cmd=show&ixPost=1988) (one of the comments thinks so, at least),[cite](http://www.astoundingsecrets.com/impossible.htm) (not explicitly “any size”, but it says “Not even something as thin as toilet paper, or as large as newspaper”). I haven’t found any statement of the myth that explicitly specifies a normal letter-sized sheet, and very few that don’t include the claim that size doesn’t matter. Incidentally, the Google search I used to find those was “impossible fold paper -britney -straightedge -origami” (without the quotes). The -britney was to exclude all of the (now abundant) articles talking about Britney Gallivan’s achievement, -straightedge was to remove mathematical discussions about trisecting the angle, etc., by folding rather than the traditional compass and straightedge, and -origami eliminated things like “it’s so hard to make a paper crane, it seems almost impossible”. [/QUOTE] I’ll bow to your Google-fu. I saw where it said her first attempt was with foil. But I’m positive that the paper shown in the pictures was basically toilet paper. You can see how narrow it is. Ahhh…[here’s a site](http://www.damninteresting.com/?p=594) that states it was toilet paper. But I’ll admit that it seems like the UL does seem to imply “any size or shape” of paper. ---
**Author:** ![brossa](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/brossa/32/3040_2.png) [@brossa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brossa)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2007, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/folding-paper-in-half/402040/52 "2007-05-01T19:14:50Z")
I wonder if there is video of Ms. Gallivan folding the material. Not that I doubt that there are the correct number of layers or anything, but I suspect that the paper is more _laid_ than _folded_, if I might be allowed to make the distinction. In the photos that I’ve seen she’s posed with the paper stack at the 11 fold step; I would bet that to go to 12 folds would require that the stack be unfolded and refolded from the start, rather than just adding one more fold on top of the previously made folds. It would be possible, although tedious, to lay the paper out on edge on the floor in a series of gentle curves that would collapse down to the folded shape in one final move. Think of it this way: if you drive a bunch of nails into a wall, you can take a paper tape and thread it through and around the nails in such a way that, when pulled off the wall and allowed to settle flat, the tape would show the same pattern of layers as a ‘folded’ tape. She could just be planning really far ahead and leaving extra material in some places that will later be taken up by the folds, but this would leave the intermediate stages looking very buckled and not really ‘folded’. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/folding-paper-in-half/402040.md?page=2)