this post was submitted on 04 Jan 2025
346 points (99.4% liked)

xkcd

9304 readers
256 users here now

A community for a webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language.

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

You may notice the first half of these instructions are similar to the instructions for a working nuclear fusion device. After the first few dozen steps, be sure to press down firmly and fold quickly to overcome fusion pressure.

https://explainxkcd.com/3033/

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 49 points 1 month ago (3 children)

Fun fact: if you do that 42 times, the piece of paper will be so thick it will reach the moon

[–] [email protected] 32 points 1 month ago

At some point the thickness of the stack will exceed both the width and breadth of the "faces" of the paper, at which point you seriously have to consider in which dimension the folds should continue.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 month ago (2 children)

1mm * 2^42 = 4'398'046.511104 km

Distance to moon: 405'500km

I'm sorry I ever doubted you. I shall immediately undo my downvote.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 month ago (5 children)

What kind of upside down ass country/region uses apostrophes for thousands separator?

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Very sorry for you you aren't able to handle swiss supremacy 😞😞😞

I'll pray for you 😞😞😞

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 month ago

Sweden does. As we use a comma (,) to separate units from decimals instead of a dot. It's annoying. Some programs like Excel freaks, and wolfram alpha thinks you're using coordinates.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago (1 children)

That would most probably be Switzerland. Perhaps a referendum can be set up to change that?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago

Actully no. A referemdum can only be taken against a law by the Government, meaning to stop a change and Not to cause one.

There is the initiative, but it can only change the constitution, not laws itself.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago
[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Took the words out of my mouth but you were way more diplomatic

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago

"the fuck is this shit?"

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 month ago

1mm thick is no longer in the realm if paper but into some form of heavy cardboard. That said, even at .05mm, its still a pretty think wad when folded up.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 month ago

I love this fact so much, because it always blows your mind.