Moon exponential growth
Name_______________________________
Imagine that you had a very thin and very big sheet of paper, big enough to fold in half
50 times. Of course that would be impossible, but let’s pretend that you did.
Do you think that after 50 folds the paper would be think enough to reach from here to
the moon? The moon is about 240,000 miles (15,000,000,000 inches) from Earth.
Complete the table below for the first 5 folds.
Number of
Folds
0
1
2
3
4
5
Thickness of paper
(inches)
1/1000 or 0.001
What equation could you use to determine the thickness after x number of folds?
Determine the thickness after:
20 folds _________________________ inches
50 folds _________________________ inches
How many miles thick is 50 folds? ______________________________
(5280 ft. is 1 mile)
How many folds would be required for the thickness to exceed the diameter our galaxy?
About 6 x 1017 miles.