Fold Paper 42 Times and You Pass the Moon

A sheet of paper 0.1 millimeters thick, folded 42 times, would be over 400,000 kilometers tall.

Each fold doubles the stack, and doubling gets out of hand quickly. The Moon is about 384,400 kilometers away on average. In practice you cannot fold real paper more than a dozen times or so, so this is arithmetic and not a weekend project.

Check it yourself

Multiply 0.1 millimeters by 2 to the 42nd power and convert to kilometers. You should get about 439,800.