Paper Thickness Calculator — Folding Doubles Thickness
Every time you fold a piece of paper the stack doubles. Enter the sheet thickness and the number of folds to see the resulting height — and find out exactly how many folds would theoretically reach the Moon.
mm
Stack height after the given number of folds
- 1
Exponential growth factor (2ⁿ)
2ⁿ (n = 10) = 1,024Each fold doubles the total stack thickness. - 2
Thickness (mm)
0.1 × 1,024 = 102.400
How does this calculator work?
Each fold of paper doubles its thickness: after n folds, stack height = t₀ × 2ⁿ. A 0.1 mm sheet reaches over 10 cm after 10 folds, taller than Everest after about 33 folds, and beyond the Moon after just 42 folds — a vivid demonstration of exponential growth. Enter sheet thickness and folds to see the exact height.
Formula
How this is calculated
Each fold stacks the paper on top of itself, so the total thickness doubles with every fold. Starting from a single sheet t₀ thick, after n folds the stack is t₀ × 2ⁿ. This is pure exponential growth: the same mathematical pattern that governs compound interest, bacterial doubling and population growth.
Standard A4 copy paper is about 0.1 mm thick. After just 10 folds it would be ~102 mm (over 10 cm); after 20 folds it would be ~104 m; after 42 folds it would exceed the Earth–Moon distance of 384,400 km. In practice, paper can only be folded physically about 7 times by hand before the layers become too rigid to crease further — the theoretical limit is a curiosity in exponential mathematics, not a practical achievement.
The XY plot shows thickness vs fold count (capped at the first 29 steps for readability). The curve climbs so steeply that even a modest number of folds produces an astronomically thick stack on paper.
Frequently asked questions
Standard 80 gsm copy paper (typical office paper) is about 0.10–0.11 mm thick. Thinner paper such as Bible paper is around 0.04 mm; cardstock ranges from 0.25 to 0.40 mm; photographic paper can be 0.25–0.30 mm. You can measure your own paper with a ruler by stacking 100 sheets and dividing.
After each fold the number of layers doubles and the length halves. After 7 folds you have 128 layers each a quarter of the original length, and the bending force needed to crease that rigid stack exceeds what a person can apply. In 2002 Britney Gallivan showed that a sufficiently long sheet can be folded 12 times — she used a 1.2 km roll of toilet paper.
Starting from a 0.1 mm sheet, after 42 folds the stack would be 0.1 × 2⁴² mm ≈ 439,804,651,110 mm ≈ 439,805 km, which exceeds the Moon's average distance of about 384,400 km. With a 0.1 mm sheet you need just 42 folds; thinner paper needs one or two more.
Also known as
TG we-Calculate Editorial Team. (2026). Paper Thickness Calculator — Folding Doubles Thickness [Online calculator]. TG we-Calculate. https://we-calculate.com/calculator/paper-thickness-calculator
TG we-Calculate Editorial Team. "Paper Thickness Calculator — Folding Doubles Thickness." TG we-Calculate. 2026. https://we-calculate.com/calculator/paper-thickness-calculator.
TG we-Calculate Editorial Team, "Paper Thickness Calculator — Folding Doubles Thickness," TG we-Calculate, 2026. [Online]. Available: https://we-calculate.com/calculator/paper-thickness-calculator
@misc{wecalculate_paper_thickness_calculator, title = {Paper Thickness Calculator — Folding Doubles Thickness}, author = {{TG we-Calculate Editorial Team}}, howpublished = {\url{https://we-calculate.com/calculator/paper-thickness-calculator}}, year = {2026}, note = {TG we-Calculate} }
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