DEFY S. McQUAID! #63: Girls who fold paper, and the rest of us who are amazed by them
The Question
Mike Mohan asks:
okay, there’s this question out there. if you have a piece of paper, and you fold it in half (you following me?) and then you fold it in half again, and then you fold it in half again… there’s some theory out there that says there’s only so many times you’ll actually be able to continue folding it. is this true? couldn’t you find a way to break that rule, by either getting a piece of paper that is ultra-thin and a square mile wide? or making the paper wet. who comes up with these sorts of problem questions anyways, and what’s the actual applicable use for it (except in origami competitions, i suppose)?
The Answer
Interestingly enough, I remember when we first heard about this “law”. It was on a field trip in middle school, and we were sitting across from each other on the bus, and spent the next 45 minutes ripping pages out of our notebooks and trying to fold them. Weird.
Okay, so, this is one of those “everybody knows” questions. BUT, like many of these, it turns out to be untrue!
There’s this girl. Her name is Britney Gallivan. She’s from Pomona, CA, and she’s apparently wicked intelligent. She, in her junior year of high school, derived an equation that allows one to calculate the length required to fold a piece of paper in half X number of times in a single direction. That equation is:
PI * t n n
L = ——– * (2 + 4) * (2 - 1)
6
where t=thickness of the paper, n is the number of single-directional folds you want to do, and L is the length required of the paper.
In January of 2002, Britney Gallivan folded a piece of paper in half 12 times. I expect that she went somewhere in Pomona and acquired a long-ass piece of thin paper in order to accomplish the feat.
Here’s a picture of her doing her thing.
For this, if I had the power, I would award a place on the House of Rock Award Plaque.
The people who come up with these questions are trying to demonstrate properties of mathematics involving dividing things in half. They are also trying to keep their students interested.
The applicable use is probably something to do with storage on the space shuttle. Or compression ratios for long, thin cables. Or just to be awesome at parties. Or something like that. I know I’d go to a party if there was going to be a paper folding exhibition…
She’s cute. Is she single?
Yeah.. she was a junior in high school in 2002. Which means that she’s 20 or so, right?
McQuaid, get on this question! Is she single?
Of course she’s not single. Silly boys. You think that a girl as smart and creative and capable as that is single at U.C. Berkeley?
Patrick, you are closest to the Berkeley campus - feel free to try and prove me wrong.
I did her.
… laundry.
Actually, I highly doubt the guy did her laundry. As particular as she is about folding paper, imagine the dictatorial control she has over folding her clothes. I bet she folds ‘em herself, and doesn’t trust anyone, let along John Doe, to do it for her.
Maybe he just did the loading into the washer, and then transfer to dryer step? Those parts are tedious. And the guy just wants to do laundry, can’t you even give him that humble dream?
In my opinion, the tedious part is folding the clothes. I can load the washer and dryer no problem. But I’m so worn out by the time I need to fold clothes, that usually I just create a giant pile of clothes on the floor.
If I had a dream about the paper-folding girl and laundry… I’d dream about folding her clothes. It’d be like dreaming about cooking dinner for Giada De Laurentiis.
But in either of those cases, where you are expecting them to do what they are “famous” for (Ms. De Laurentiis actually being famous), don’t you think they’d like a break? Everybody appreciates the gesture on some level, I would hope. Does the thought no longer count?
I think the thought counts, for sure. It’s just that if I were an expert at folding, I think I’d be particular about my laundry. I’d appreciate the gesture, but I think I’d appreciate the dishes or make-up or homework more.
…dishes.
Probably in the UC Berkeley cafeteria. You know what’s fun? Put ice and salt in a glass (made of glass), smear the bottom of the glass with honey, and stick it to the plastic lunch tray. It is STUCK ON GOOD.
Homework. Yeah right! She derived an equation that uses three variables and pi. I think she can handle her homework.
….makeup.
also unlikely. She’s clearly an expert with thin walled paper products. It would be an easy move from paper to tissue paper and cosmetics. Also, her deep understanding of mathematics probably makes her makeup application absurdly efficient.
r u mental. y do you keep on putting random stuff in random convos …wierd
u r wierd. y r u wierd?
I believe when Mr. Wizard did it the max was 8 folds, and each successive fold was at a 90 degree angle to the previous, which likely has a large impact on ones ability to fold sed paper. From the picture it looks like she has folded repeatedly in one direction.
Yep, hence “single-directional folds”. All that means is that she’s smarter than Mr. Wizard. Heh.
Today (aug 16 2006) someone found my website by searching for Britney Gallivan and upon closer inspection, I realized we’re on page THREE of a google search for her name.
I think we should make a new website goal of trying to introduce ourselves to Britney Gallivan through Google Power alone.
Dear Britney Gallivan,
If you find this, please e-mail us, you are a mikedidonato.com hero.
mikedidonato AT gmail DOT com
rock on,
mike d.
When I googled her (lord that sounds profane), this site didn’t come up until the 21st result. There is stiff competition for this honor, it would seem; they stepped up their efforts as soon as you caught wind.
The 21st result is on page 3.
If the guy behind Snakes on a Blog can get a red carpet ticket to Snakes on a Plane, I think we can create enough internet buzz to get Britney Gallivan over to Mike D’s site.
We’ve moved from #21 to #20.
it’s only a matter of time before we’re front page google.
You’re right, my reading comprehension is for crap. I read it as Mike D’s page was the THIRD result. There is no Britney Gallivan conspiracy. Yet. Eh, Britney Gallivan?
You’re now at the bottom of page 2 of the Google results. Good job! How can I help?
I think if all of us do google searches for Britney Gallivan regularly, and then proceed to page two where my result lies… and then click on it. Google will see my website as being relevant to Britney Gallivan searches.
I am also going to pepper my website with her name in hopes to covince google that we are key.
After that, we’ll just have to wait for Britney Gallivan or one of her friends to search for her name. and then! Then we’ll all meet our mathematical hero.
Ok then. You’re doing quite well. Top of page two now. I can do lots of clicks with Mozilla Firefox, cause it opens pages in tabs.
Jes is right. We’re at #11. Keep working team. We’ll find Britney Gallivan yet!
We’re on the first page! Result number 8. Let’s go!
NUMBER SIX!!!
dropped down to no. 7 :(
dropped again to #8….
we’re getting close to falling off the front page…
up to #5… AND SIX.
If that papers would be in the hand of boys then it may be look awfull,praise to girls.:D
I suspect that’s thereason general public want to read blog….Internet visitors generally create blogs to declare themselves or their secret views. Blog grant them same matter on the monitor screen what they specifically needed,so as the above stuffs declared it.
Hmmm….I really wish these stupid bots would at least make an attempt at proper English when posting on sites. But then again I guess we will never have the little chuckle they give us when they do make it onto a site. Oh well…
Just read it with a Russian accent in mind. Makes perfect sense then.
I DID TOO! How funny!
This comment has been deleted as it was pure and utter spam.
Pamela (and others),
I know you’re a celebrity and everything, but those of us here at MikeDiDonato.com only care about two celebrities: Britney Gallivan and Natalie Portman.
Wow, it’s Patrick! Thought you disappeared.
Penis health related articles and reviews by some Top Class Organization Like BBC, Oprah, ABC, CNN and found some best top rated penis enlargement medicines.
I was planning on removing this spam comment - but wow! This is incredible!
“reviews by some Top Class Organization Like BBC, Oprah, ABC, CNN”
Really? Spam authors believe that Oprah is on the same level as the BBC, ABC, and CNN? And what about poor NBC or CBS? Or the Food Network? One would think that the Discovery Channel would be more up on medical advancees as well….
I sterilized the spam comment rather than eliminating it entirely here, simply for entertainment value.
I wonder if she folds her underwear… she strikes me as the sort of obsessive person who would do that, I don’t know why. I bet she can do wonders with tortillas, too.
Wow, I just found this article, did the google, and the site is now #4 upon the google power. I assume since she has not written to Mike D yet, she hasn’t actually googled herself (wow that does sound dirty), or the more likely possibility is that she’s completely freaked out.
she probably doesn’t own a computer as she sees them as going against the “paperless society”, in which she would inevitably not have a job as master paper folder.
Did you know that Britney Gallivan’s middle name is Crystal?
I did not know this. Oh Britney Gallivan. Where are you?
We are #3 on Google searches for “Britney Gallivan”
Surely she’s seen us by now?!
Maybe we should try something else. We pick two or three (or however many we want) semi-obscure people (professors, high school athletes, unpopular musicans, etc) that have at least some sort of internet reference. And then we keep talking about them until their Google rank rises, and the first one to contact us wins!
The problem with Britney Gallivan is that there’s only one of her. So if she doesn’t contact us, we’re just here waiting.
Hmmm, according to this, Britney has found herself on the web and commented on it. See comment #28 here:
http://www.imao.us/archives/000755.html#000755
So… while I think it’s very possible that we get to #2…. we’d have to unseat Wikipedia for the #1 spot….
Maybe this is just me being very naive (especially because I think it’s the antithesis of what Google stands for), but can a group like Wikipedia buy into top spots? I only think this because they’re at the top of dang near everything you search. Or is it just that their site gets SO much traffic that they dominate all queries?
Wikipedia just dominates the queries. As far as I know, right now you can’t buy positions in google for normal searches. Sometimes a couple ‘advertised’ links will pop up at the very top. Those are paid for. But Wikipedia is not one of these.