Innovative paper folding

Have you every tried folding paper? Pause here and think about it or better still get a piece of paper and fold it. How many times can you fold it? Probably 7 or 8 times at the most.

In school, I remember my math teacher telling us that one could not fold paper more than 8 times. Well, I tried but never succeeded, so I assumed what she was saying was true and it was “impossible” to do better than that.Well in 2001, a high school girl named Britney Gallivan worked on this problem for extra credit and derived a nice little mathematical formulation that let her fold paper into a staggering 12 times. You can read more about it here: http://mathworld.wolfram.com/Folding.html

While it may not be earth shattering it does bring out two points:

1. Keep an open mind and question everything till your curiosity is satisfied. It is the first step towards innovation.
2. When stuck with a problem think outside the box. Look at the solution and not the problem. Creativity is powerful when combine with knowedge.