Folding a paper 8 times

You can't fold a sheet of paper in half more than eight times, no matter how large the sheet of paper may be

Heard this before? I heard it sometime when in school, promptly went back home, tried it with a newspaper sheet, found it can't be done & accepted it as fact till I came across this article today.

Hmm, as the article ends, "It pays to question received wisdom, at least as far as paperfolding is concerned."

And you know what? They are monetizing this concept proved by Britney Gallivan (who folded it 12 times) in 2001/2002. (Boing Boing had a post on this)

A related note : There's this question posed in the book "The Tipping Point" by Malcolm Gladwell - Take any size of paper & fold it 50 times over & over. How tall do you think the folded paper stack will be? And the answer : approximately equal to the Earth-Sun distance. (another piece of received wisdom, huh? Think over it. Its very much like the grain of rice & the chess board puzzle)

-Arvind