Eli5: Why can you only fold a paper in half seven times, no matter the size ?
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I love how nobody has pointed out yet that this “problem” doesn’t apply just to paper. It actually applies to any sheet-type material (copper sheets, lead sheets, gold leaf sheets, aluminum foil). And it seems to consistently stay at or around 7 folds for human-level strength, but if you up the strength factor, you can get more than 7, although there is (and must be) an upper limit for what can be folded given infinite strength before the material separates from itself on the outside edge of the fold OR becomes incompressable on the inside edge of the fold.
As a matter of pedantry, you might also consider the difference between a fold and a roll. It’s entirely possible that it is definitionally impossible to achieve more than 7 folds because every “fold” after that is actually a half-roll. How do you contrast a fold and a roll?
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