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sing our mathematical mind-set, we will discover the surprisingly rich structure

ID: 3282103 • Letter: S

Question

sing our mathematical mind-set, we will discover the surprisingly rich structure hidden in the simple process of repeatedly folding a piece of paper. Getting into the fold Given a rectangular sheet of paper, we define the right-folding sequence to be the result of taking the right edge and folding it on top of the left edge and then repeating this procedure with the same folded piece of paper. By stage n of the right-folding sequence, we mean that this paper-folding process has been repeated n times. Stage 1 of the right-folding sequence Stage 2 of the right-folding sequence

Explanation / Answer

In the first stage we can find one fold and 2 L's [2]

In the second stage we can find 2 folds and 2 L's and 2 R's [4]

In the third stage we can find 4 L's and 4 R's [8]

In the fourth stage we can find 8 L's and 8 R's [16]

.......

The obsrvation is 2, 4, 8, 16....

We can express the same as 21, 22,23, 24, ........

So for nth stage we can find the sequence of 2n where n = 1, 2, 3, 4,...., n