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Monolayer carbon sheet the size of the earth at least might be worth a try… 😅

Is there a specific reason why 180 or so more folds would do it?

I've always wondered how they did it.

😂

You called?

I think you'll have trouble folding around fold 114 www.wolframalpha.com/input?i2d=tr...

Oh no, someone will do it

*Gmod ragdoll noises*

I’m much more interested in reversing the process. Explain how that could work.

I don't know why I love this post so much

After how many folds is the paper one carbon molecule in length?

Lmao

I missed a step. I got this

But I don't want a Black Hole or a fusion bomb.

Don't try this at home

If you start with a (very very) thin piece of notebook paper, after about 124 folds the paper would be smaller than the Planck length. Beyond that you can't really know how big the paper is due to quantum uncertainty.

I wonder how many folds until it starts to round out through self gravitation.

🤣

Lol

It said you have to press firmly (in the title text) but I don't think even an industrial press can press firmly enough to make the black hole.

At that point, just go fold water instead. See how many folds you can do!!

But it would be folded

I made it to 189 and everything went grey...

You will not make it to 10.

Love XKCD!!

Isn't this a really long, thin, line as opposed to a point? You only get a black hole if the paper doesn't grow in height.

Proof that the landing wasn't fake, Neil was just an origami master

jajajajaja gracias!

Can i use aluminium foil?

Omg thank you so much! I was actually looking for these exact instructions🥰 gonna go try it now!

ive gotten really close many times

🤣🤣🤣

The volume won’t change by folding and a cube with the density of paper and the volume of a sheet is certainly not a black hole.

Too bulky. It would have to be less than 1/10^30 the thickness of a proton.

There's two problems with the thickness - one, it would get huge and stop you folding the paper, and two, it needs to also be reduced to about twice the Schwarzschild radius. The page says that radius is 2.339×10^-30 metres.

real talk: I love how this was going to be HPC's last video. (he mentioned it in a QA some time afterwards) That explosion of the paper fibers caused his channel to explode in popularity as well.

this isn't even that much should try it tomorrow

No, it depends on the size and thickness of the paper, but for standard 80gsm A4 printer paper, 7 times is the limit

Actually given the physical size of the paper and its mass it'll probably collapse into a black hole soon after you begin folding it.

Tried it! I think my paper is broken, can’t get past step 5. Which sucks because I really wanted a black hole to mail to ted Cruz. 😞

piece of paper big enough would collapse on its self, if it were on a flat plane light years across. Perhaps it could spin like a galactic disc, but then it couldn't be folded while spinning. That whole, moment of inertia, angular velocity, and any perturbation near or distant masses.

Makes no sense. Folding that many times would result in a thickness larger than the observable Universe, but the mass would stay the same. How would a mass that small collapse into a black hole?

ChatGPT tells me the paper is too small to reach the needed density due to Hawking radiation

Brilliant, especially noting the importance of overcoming the fusion pressure

Yet another proof of the constructive power of origami straightedge and compass could never

But first! at 52x you get to the moon!

You do that, and the paper will EXPLODE. See the classic YouTube video from the Hydraulic Press Channel.

Bigger sheet of paper

Did you know that it is mathematically impossible to fold any size of regular paper (A4 thickness) more than 7 times? You can look up the formula--each fold doubles the thickness and it just can't work....

So close to understanding this I never been before!😅

I can't make more than seven folds no matter how big the sheet is... Sheet!

To this day, my favorite science book diagram was a picture of the earth, about the size of a dime. It said, "If you could compress the earth to this size, it would be enough to keep collapsing into itself and become a singularity". It made just a far out concept seem almost... attainable.

180 OR SO ? I have to know exactly, will I do it at 180 fold ???

That paper has become a pillow

Reminds me of Gabriel's cake or whatever it's called

well now I'm going to sing "origami" instead of "supermassive" whenever I listen to that Muse song

.707

Blue! No—

Trick question. Origami always starts with a square.

My grandad achieved his black belt in origami 🤔

Hmm, can I get a print out of this? For reasons.

Pffft.

But folding a paper never makes it denser...? 🤔

I have a strong suspicion you actually did the math to see if it would take 180 more folds to make a black hole 🤔

Ok this is my kind of amusing

When that hole evaporates, how long will it take and how much of a bomb will it seem like? An A4 sheet of paper is about 5 grams? According to Gemini: "...a 5-gram black hole would release approximately 0.107 megatons of energy during its evaporation, equivalent to about 4.5 x 10^14 Joules.

Gonna need some special tools.

Yeah, I was gonna say this is gonna go the opposite direction we're going for here.

Oh, 190 folds. my bad.

Even 8 is a stretch :) So happy I’m not the only one who knows this.

12 www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-record...

7 is the limit. If you stretch rules, maybe 8.

The Guinness record is 12 using 4000 ft of toilet roll

The Guinness World Record is 12 folds. The record holder used tissue paper 4000ft long and was the first to achieve 9, 10, 11, and 12 folds. guinnessworldrecords.com/world-record...

Mythbusters cheated (surprise surprise) They taped pieces of paper together to create a giant sheet. Folding that in half only created 2 sheets of paper stacked.

So you're saying we need paper the size of Montana, got it.

youtu.be/65Qzc3_NtGs?...

This is great! Okay just one more f

📌

how long will the black hole last?

are you using euclidean origami? if so: stop doing that. hope this helps!

I would have thought more for a sheet of paper (you have a record of doing the math for your jokes, so Im assuming that 180 or so is accurate for your average legal sized sheet of paper)

Schwarzchild origami

No cheating after step 7!

Title text: "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." Alt text: https://explainxkcd.com/3033#Transcript

... but be sure to enjoy your new black hole right away since it's going to evaporate in 10^-154 seconds!