Leon Either

Fifty-One Folds

A small block of white paper, folded in half seven times, rests on a white plinth in a gallery, below a typed card on the wall that reads FOLDED 7 TIMES and OF 51.
A close view of the folded edge of the paper block, its many thin layers pressed tight together.

A sheet of paper is about a tenth of a millimetre thick. Fold it in half and it doubles. Fold it again and it doubles again. The act never changes. It is the same small gesture each time, and each time it asks for a little more.

Seven folds and the sheet is a hard little block of one hundred and twenty-eight layers, and the hand gives up. Forty-two folds and it would reach past the moon. Fifty-one and it would reach past the sun.

So the way to the sun is already folded inside this sheet, behind forty-four more of something a child can do. It is not far in steps. It is only far in strength.

In 2002 a high school student, Britney Gallivan, worked out why paper resists, then folded one very long strip in half twelve times. The record moved. The sun did not come any closer.

Sol LeWitt wrote that irrational thoughts should be followed absolutely and logically. This thought is perfectly rational, and still no one can follow it to the end. Yoko Ono wrote tasks that could only be done in the mind. This one could be done by hand, every step of it, except for the doing.

Every fold is possible. Only all of them are not.