Thirteen times. That’s how many times students from St Mark’s School in Southborough, Massachusetts managed to fold it as part of their studies. That’s right, kids are actually going to school to learn how to fold TP.
It’s not all fun and games though. Turns out there’s actually mathematics involved. From New Scientist:
Based on the thickness of a sheet of paper, a formula can be used to calculate the minimum length needed to fold it a given number of times. Paper roughly doubles in size with each fold and the sides become more rounded, making it harder and harder to bend. Wrinkles also have a significant impact, making the formula difficult to follow in practice. In addition, no single roll is long enough to fold thirteen times, requiring the group to tape together numerous rolls of industrial toilet paper 1.2 kilometers long.
The final result was 1.5m wide, 76cm high and consisted of 8192 layers of paper. The 13 folds beat the previous record of seven times comprehensively.
Sam
Thursday, January 12, 2012 at 10:42 AMHow many times could I give a shit?
Once apparently, otherwise I wouldn’t be commenting…
Greg
Thursday, January 12, 2012 at 10:58 AMI believe the previous record was actually 10, set by a university student in the US.
Drew
Thursday, January 12, 2012 at 11:05 AMMythbusters already did this.
Kroo
Thursday, January 12, 2012 at 11:08 AMThe spirit of the of the myth was that you had to alternate folding directions each time you folded it in half. I’m not sure this counts.
Zac
Thursday, January 12, 2012 at 11:29 AMI agree, it should have been alternation directions, what makes it worse is it took them 7 years to get to that point of actually doing it, technology advancement is looking bleak right now
Random
Thursday, January 12, 2012 at 11:08 AMWhat a waste of time and TP
Bwana
Thursday, January 12, 2012 at 11:57 AMScrunching is better than folding.
Jackson Bison
Thursday, January 12, 2012 at 12:02 PMI’m a scruncher anyway
Tas
Thursday, January 12, 2012 at 2:51 PMYou two are the Devil’s children.
Rollz
Thursday, January 12, 2012 at 1:54 PMDamn good idea teaching kids how to fold. Don’t know who it is but someone in my family has an ass that’s eating it by the ton. Bloody expensive habit.