Question

Folding paper. Each time you fold an ordinary sheet of paper in half, you double the thickness.

a. A single sheet of 20-pound bond paper is about a tenth of a millimeter thick. How would you come up with this estimate? (Hint: Paper often comes in reams of 500 pages.)

a. By measuring the thickness of a single sheet and multiplying it by the number of sheets in a ream.
b. By measuring the thickness of a ream and dividing it by the number of sheets.
c. By estimating based on the weight of the paper.
d. By counting the number of folds.

Answer 1

To estimate the thickness of a single sheet of 20-pound bond paper, you can measure the thickness of a ream (500 sheets) and divide it by 500. Then, multiply this average thickness by the number of sheets in a ream (500) to get the estimate for a single sheet. The correct answer is a.

Step-by-step explanation:

By measuring the thickness of a single sheet and multiplying it by the number of sheets in a ream. To come up with an estimate of the thickness of a single sheet of 20-pound bond paper, you can measure the thickness of a ream (500 sheets) and divide it by 500. This will give you an average thickness for each sheet in the ream. Then, you can multiply this average thickness by the number of sheets in a ream (500) to get the estimate for a single sheet. For example, if the thickness of a ream of 500 sheets is 5 millimeters, then the average thickness per sheet would be 0.01 millimeters (5 millimeters divided by 500). Therefore, a single sheet of 20-pound bond paper would be about 0.01 millimeters thick.