DRINKING GLASS

A common misconception is that the consumption of oxygen by the flame in the

container is a factor in the water rising. There may be a slight possibility that
there would be a tiny rise in the water from the flame using up oxygen but it’s
extremely small compared to the actual reason. Simply put, the water would rise
imperceptibly at a steady rate as the oxygen were consumed. You likely saw the
level rise almost all at once and pretty much after the flame went out.

At first, the flame heats the air inside the container and this hot air expands
quickly. Some of the expanding air escapes from under the vase where you
might have seen some bubbles. When the flame fades and goes out, the air in
the container cools and cooler air contracts or takes up less space. That
contraction creates a weak vacuum – or lower pressure – in the container.
Where’s the higher pressure? Right! It’s outside the container pressing down on
the water in the dish. The outside air pushes water into the container until the
pressure is equalized inside and outside the container. The water stops rising
when that pressure equalization is reached.
 PAPER-FOLDING MYTH
The paper-folding myth refers to folding a piece of paper in half multiple times in any
direction. Try it for yourself with a regular piece of notebook paper. The first couple of folds
are easy. As you approach the fifth and sixth folds, though, you'll notice that it's increasingly
harder to fold the now compact piece of paper.

It's not uncommon for many kids only to be able to fold a piece of paper six times. If you
have strong hands and help from a friend, you may be able to achieve that elusive seventh
fold. More than seven folds, though, would seem to be impossible, thus giving rise to the
popular myth that seven folds is all that's possible.

The folding limitation of paper is caused by a couple of factors. First, there's the problem of
exponential growth: the number of layers of paper doubles with each fold. For example, after
the sixth fold, you're left with 64 layers of paper rather than the single layer you started with.
It's easy to see why it's harder to fold 64 layers of paper than just one!

The other problem you encounter has to do with the paper itself. When folded multiple times,
the paper gets much smaller, especially compared to its increasing thickness. The paper also
gets distorted as its creases become more rounded with each fold. Eventually, the paper fibers
themselves aren't flexible enough to allow further folds.

At this point, you may be thinking that the paper-folding myth doesn't sound much like a
myth at all. That's what many people thought until a high school student named Britney
Gallivan proved everyone wrong back in 2002.

Britney successfully folded a 4,000-foot-long roll of toilet paper an unheard-of 12 times! As

if that wasn't impressive enough, she also developed a mathematical theorem that allows you
to calculate the maximum number of folds possible based upon factors such as paper
thickness, paper length, and direction of folding.

As you can see, paper can be folded more than seven times. You just need to use bigger and
bigger pieces of paper to increase the number of folds possible. It can be fun to play with the
mathematics of paper folding to see how thickness increases exponentially with each fold.
For example, if you start with an average piece of paper that's 1/10th of a millimeter thick
(0.0039 inches), it'll be as thick as a notebook after seven folds. If you could keep folding it,
at 23 folds it would be one kilometer (3,280 feet) thick! At 42 folds, it would extend to the
Moon and, finally, at a whopping 103 folds, that piece of paper would exceed the size of
the observable universe at over 93 billion light-years in diameter!

Can You Really Only Fold a Piece of Paper 7 Times?NEXT ARTICLE

For all those who didn’t know this, there are plenty of people who argue that you can only
fold a piece of paper in half a maximum of 7 times.
Go ahead, give it a try. This is one of those experiments which does not come with the
disclaimer of: “Don’t try this at home.” A small suggestion would be, however, to not to use
a piece of paper torn from a notebook.
So how many did you manage with the folding project?
If you’re a normal human being with normal strength (unlike the Hulk), then I would imagine
that you could have managed a maximum of 5 folds. Maybe 6…if you’re quite strong. It is
highly unlikely, however, that you would have managed 7 or more folds in the piece of paper.
So why is such a seemingly easy task actually so difficult to accomplish? Why can’t you go
beyond 7 folds?
Let’s start with the investigation of the reality of the 7-fold concept.
It’s a Myth!
Yes, absolutely. A piece of paper can, in fact, be folded more than 7 times. It has been
done many times in many places all around the world. It’s just that the people who
accomplished the feat used a lot of paper! In other words, it was not a piece of paper that you
could simply tear from some notebook. Also, there were numerous people involved in the
process.
So, good luck trying to manage more than 7 folds all on your own with a small piece of
paper. Under those conditions, it is basically impossible.

Who Did It?

Britney Gallivan, from California, was one woman with the determination to prove this long-
held concept incorrect and totally baseless. In January of 2000, she took a rather long piece of
paper (a single piece of toilet paper) that measured 4000 feet (1.2 kilometers) and folded it
….. (drumroll please…)

Britney Gallivan with 11 folds

She folded it 12 times!
That accomplishment definitely deserves some applause, and there was more to her
achievement than bragging rights! She also provided an equation that yielded the width of
paper or the length of the paper necessary to fold a piece of paper in a single direction. For
single-direction folding, the following equation applies:

Paper folding theorem

where t represents the thickness of the material to be folded, L represents the length of a piece
of paper to be folded in only one direction, and n represents the number of folds desired.
Since Britney’s accomplishment, there have been many instances of people breaking the
barrier of 7 folds. The one which got a lot of coverage was a group of students from St.
Mark’s School. They used a piece of toilet paper that was 10 miles in length and the process
took 7 hours to complete!
The group that set the record.
The number that these industrious students achieved was 13 folds!

Why Is It So Difficult?
The main difficulty lies in the ever-increasing thickness and thus the strength of the paper
itself. It would seem quite plain at a glance, but if you take a piece of paper that is only 0.1
mm thick and fold it in half, the new thickness is 0.2 mm. This thickness goes on increasing
exponentially, as does the height of the paper. If you fold the same piece of paper 7 times, it
would be as thick as 128 sheets of paper.
Also, with the increase in height, you also have a lesser width at your disposal to use in order
to apply some force to keep the paper folding. So yes, not only does the paper become
immensely thick, but it also becomes very, very tall.
In fact, it is said that if you folded a paper more than 100 times, you would have a piece of
paper that would be thicker than the Universe itself!
Here’s a video of the Mythbuster team debunking the 7-folds only myth.