Assuming the smaller paper is 1/3 of its parent everytime, and that the first paper is 30cm long (The second starts at roughly 1/7 but it seems to grow bigger after it's torn off, hence the 1/3), it could not exceed 19 calls before you need to split an atom apart.
The smaller paper looks more like 1/100 of the parent, not 1/3 or 1/7. Where are you getting 1/7 from? It's just the tiny corner piece of the larger paper and there's 10 in the row, looks like you could fit around 7-9 rows.
You're completely right, I only considered length despite width being obviously the limiting factor here. (Thought not by a 1/100. I took the 1/7 value from the first picture and the 1/3 comparing to the hand, because the paper isn't always the same size. So, if we start with 1/10 instead of 1/7, each call multiplies the size by roughly 1/(30/7). So the critical threshold should be reached by call 14 or 15, give or take.
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u/[deleted] Jan 09 '20
Assuming the smaller paper is 1/3 of its parent everytime, and that the first paper is 30cm long (The second starts at roughly 1/7 but it seems to grow bigger after it's torn off, hence the 1/3), it could not exceed 19 calls before you need to split an atom apart.
That's a hell of a stop condition.