Britney Gallivan Britney Gallivan Britney Crystal Gallivan (born 1985) of Pomona, California, is best known for determining the maximum number of times that paper or other materials can be folded in half. In January 2002, while a junior in high school, Gallivan demonstrated that a single piece of toilet paper 4000 ft (1200 m) in length can be folded in half twelve times. This was contrary to the popular conception that the maximum number of times any piece of paper could be folded in half was seven. She calculated that, instead of folding in half every other direction, the least volume of
Möbius strip in the shape of an 'N' and would remain an 'N' after a half-twist. This folded strip, three times as long as it is wide, would be long enough to then join at the ends. This method works in principle, but becomes impractical after sufficiently many folds, if paper is used. Using normal paper, this construction can be folded flat, with all the layers of the paper in a single plane, but mathematically, whether this is possible without stretching the surface of the rectangle is not clear. Topologically, the Möbius strip can be defined as the square formula_12 with its