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Fold a sheet of paper 42 times and you reach the Moon.

A sheet of paper is 0.1 millimetres thick. Every fold doubles the thickness. After 10 folds it's 10 centimetres, after 20 just over 100 metres, after 30 about 107 kilometres. After 42 folds it would be roughly 440,000 kilometres, more than the distance to the Moon. Our brains think linearly; doubling outruns them every time.

Useful: With interest, viruses or computing power, count doublings rather than percentages to see where things are heading.

Source: en.wikipedia.org

IntuitionMathematikWachstum

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Question on this card

How thick is a 0.1 mm sheet after 20 folds?

  1. 2 millimetres
  2. 2 centimetres
  3. About 100 metres
  4. About 100 kilometres
Show the answer

Correct: About 100 metres

2 to the power of 20 is about a million, times 0.1 mm gives roughly 105 metres.

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