Folding a Piece of Paper

Algebra Level 2

Let's say you had a piece of paper with a thickness of 1/10th a millimetre.

How many times would you have to fold it for it to reach the moon?

Note: The distance from the Earth to the moon is 384,400 km.

28 103 56 45

1 solution

A Former Brilliant Member
Jul 31, 2020

The distance between the earth and the moon is not given . Assuming this distance to be $384400$ km. $=3844\times 10^8$ mm., we can write

$3844\times 10^8=\dfrac {1}{10}\times 2^n$

where $n$ is the required number of folds.

Then $n\approx 41.8$

Since $n$ has to be an integer, we get $n=\boxed {42}$ .

The options were $28, 103, 56$ and $45$ . But $45$ should be $42$ , righttt?

Lâm Lê - 9 months, 3 weeks ago