
A high school student became the first person to fold a paper in half 12 times - prabhupant
https://www.fxsolver.com/browse/formulas/Paper+folding+theorem+(required+strip+length+for+single-direction+folding)
======
rsyring
It was toilet paper and the fold was only long ways, which kind of breaks the
spirit of the challenge IMO.

Mythbusters was able to fold a giant (football field size) sheet of paper at
successive 90 degree angles (the hard way) eleven times, but it took a road
roller/compactor to do it:

[https://www.relativelyinteresting.com/how-many-times-can-
you...](https://www.relativelyinteresting.com/how-many-times-can-you-really-
fold-a-piece-of-paper-in-half/)

Article above claims someone has done the toilet paper fold 13 times.

------
option_greek
Is there any research on why its so hard to fold the paper ?

~~~
chongli
2^12 = 4096. So folding a sheet of paper 12 times would result in something
4096 times as thick. If you think about a stack of printer paper nearly 2
inches thick, well that's only 500 sheets. This fold would be more than 8
times that thick.

~~~
ikeyany
4096x is the theoretical lower bound, assuming perfect folding and
compression.

------
bsenftner
Jesus Christ on a cracker: why the hell is she described as a "school girl"?
That designates an elementary or pre-teen woman, not someone 17 years old.

~~~
dang
The submitter maybe shouldn't have rewritten the title (" _Please use the
original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait_ "
[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)).
But there's another factor: HN is highly international (at least 50% outside
the US), and often commenters interpret things as offensive violations of
cultural norms when the other person's intention (edit: and also their
meaning) was benign. I hope I can say without violating any confidence that it
was probably a case of that here.

Consider that if you lead with "Jesus Christ on a cracker", you might be
assuming something false about who you're talking to, and unfortunately adding
poison into the system.

Edit: anyone who's interested can read the long discussion below, but I should
note here that in the end we replaced the title with something more neutral.
That's what we usually do when people have complaints about a title.
(Submitted title was "A school girl became the first person to fold a paper in
half 12 times".)

~~~
abalone
Agreed about the JC comment but as for the title, sexist biases in other
cultures shouldn’t be accepted here just because the sexism is well-
intentioned, which it often is.

Likely the young woman was gender referenced to emphasize the “surprising,
unexpected” outcome. Bottom line high school males would more likely be
described as “budding mathematicians” or simply “students“ than “schoolboys”
and that is a double standard.

~~~
dang
> sexist biases in other cultures

> sexism

> Likely

You're assuming that you know that "school girl/boy" is a demeaning phrase
everywhere in the world. Are you sure? I doubt you should be. For us, "school
girl/boy" is archaic and sounds patronizing, but in other places it may simply
mean student. In many languages "school girl/boy" is the standard term for
"student, but not yet in university", while "student" is used only for
university students. If that was the meaning here, the submitter probably used
the word to highlight that Britney Crystal Gallivan accomplished what she did
while still in school. Imagine if that were so, and then they meet with a
nasty rebuke and accusations of sexism. Does that help make HN the welcoming
place we want it to be? How would you feel in that position?

If you look upthread to that aggressive snapback response, it flat-out
declares " _That designates an elementary or pre-teen woman, not someone 17
years old._ " That is almost certainly wrong. Had the author added " _Where I
come from_ ", then it would be true—and it would also be clear why they were
wrong to be aggressive, rather than inquisitive, about the word. Similarly,
your comment says " _high school males would more likely be described as
XYZ...and that is a double standard_ ". That's even more relative to your
particular language community, which I'm guessing the submitter does not
belong to. Most likely, crossed language wires created an insult where there
wasn't one. At a minimum, prabhupant deserved the benefit of the doubt from
you guys—and the site guidelines require that you give it (please see
[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)).
Alas, how difficult it is in practice to actually do.

Why dwell on this? Because conflict on HN frequently arises between people who
don't realize how they're talking across cultural/national divides. On the
internet, people assume the other person belongs to the same group as they do,
which makes it easy to interpret others as assholes when they say X—where X is
outrageous on my side of the divide. But it's a mistake to assume a universal
meaning. A lot of this misunderstanding comes, ironically, from how well HN
users all over the world have mastered English. In person, once we hear an
accent or see differences, interpretation recalibrates. But on HN, where that
data isn't present, we default to assuming that the other person is not only a
native speaker, but lives in the same region as we do. Then we get mad because
they sound like an asshole of our tribe, rather than a decent person from
another.

~~~
abalone
To follow your logic, if someone posted an article with the word “negro” in
the title, without other racist content, would you let it stand unedited
because maybe they’re from one of the cultures where that word carries no mal-
intent?

You make a fair point about making HN a “welcoming” place but your argument
exclusively focuses on the poster’s feelings. There’s another audience to
consider how to welcome: the marginalized people in HN’s primary language
community that may perceive this use of language as a micro-aggression.

I concede that we should not assume bad intentions on the part of folks who
post unfortunately worded stuff on HN. But I believe you should also concede
that poster intent is not the primary consideration when deciding how to make
HN a welcoming and supportive community.

~~~
dang
No way to answer that question in general. It would depend on the specific
situation. What if it were a historical piece? Should we sanitize that? What
if the author were black and chose that word on purpose? Would it be our place
to edit it out?

I didn't make any argument about intent being the primary consideration. There
are many considerations. My point was much simpler: you guys jumped on
prabhupant too quickly and uncharitably, and we all need to restrain ourselves
from doing that.

What makes you think that HN has a "primary language community"? Only 10% of
HN users are in or near Silicon Valley. Half are in the US, which already has
many communities. The rest are all over the world. I don't think many
generalizations are likely to be valid here.

~~~
abalone
You make fair points but at the same time are avoiding the larger question.
What are the criteria guiding the decision? You've mentioned only one, the
intent of the poster -- or more specifically the most charitably _possible_
intent. Are there conditions under which HN would should modify offensive
language to some communities? You outline no other concrete specifics that
would counterbalance globally possible poster intent.

So I'll restate my challenge: If this very same article, but concerning a
black mathematician instead of a female one, were posted with the word "negro"
included in the title by an HN poster of uncertain possibly non-U.S. origin,
would it go unedited? Stipulating that there are some locales in which this
word is inoffensive.

~~~
dang
I wouldn't say that's "the" larger question so much as a different question,
which is fine and I'm happy to answer. Are there conditions under which we
would modify story titles that might be offensive to some communities? Of
course. We do that all the time. From my perspective this is not even a
question, which is probably why I didn't mention it.

Would we edit a post title "A negro became the first person to fold a paper in
half 12 times"? Of course. That's a no-brainer. But I have a different problem
with what you're asking there. Such a title is an absurd construction. I've
never seen a submission like that, and I can't imagine one ever appearing,
except as a particularly lame troll. So you're basically asking me a trolley
problem (as in trams, not trolls!)—entirely abstract, corresponding to nothing
in lived experience. But everything that makes these questions hard about how
people treat each other, resides in lived experience.

Edit: I spent the afternoon writing about this at length, almost an essay, but
I don't know that it would be so helpful here. Its main point was that we
can't move these problems unless we remain able to respond with the heart. To
the extent that abstractions (such as ideological categories) function like a
suit of armor that we wear into battle, they dampen heart responses or even
suppress them altogether—at which point we no longer see the other as someone
like ourselves. That is why I asked you how you'd feel if you were in the OP's
situation. The key word is feel. For my part, I'd have felt awful and ashamed.
That moves nothing forward.

~~~
abalone
I appreciate your work on making HN a welcoming, supportive community. You’ve
given a great deal of thoughtful attention to the feelings of folks who may be
contributing from different cultural contexts, which is admirable. My argument
is we ought to give at least as much attention to the concerns of women in our
community who have objected to the diminutive use of “girl”. I gave a
hypothetical to demonstrate the principle that how language is received is
just as or more important than the intent in which it is given.

I think we can agree that we should not assume the worst intentions and should
be constructive with feedback. But that is not to say that posts should not be
“sanitized” (your term) simply because the poster may not have been aware of
how the language would be received more broadly (internationally). We must
also consider that some language, even if a mere misunderstanding, can make
marginalized communities feel unwelcome.

Thanks for your time on this.

------
crimsonalucard
If the paper was really really really stretchy you can do it 13 times. I'm
sure such a paper exists.

~~~
y4mi
Doubtful

> _2^12 = 4096. So folding a sheet of paper 12 times would result in something
> 4096 times as thick. If you think about a stack of printer paper nearly 2
> inches thick, well that 's only 500 sheets. This fold would be more than 8
> times that thick_
> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19763915](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19763915)

