If you cut a piece of aluminum into two equal pieces and cut those pieces into two equal pieces and repeat this 10 times, the tiny piece of aluminum is about 1000 (210) times smaller than the original piece. How many cuts would it take to get down to 1 atom of aluminum if the size of an atom was one billion times smaller than a 1-cm piece of aluminum?

Question

cuanchi · Answer

30 times

	cm	
	1	
1	0.5	2
2	0.25	4
3	0.125	8
4	0.0625	16
5	0.03125	32
6	0.015625	64
7	0.0078125	128
8	0.00390625	256
9	0.001953125	512
10	0.000976563	1024
11	0.000488281	2048
12	0.000244141	4096
13	0.00012207	8192
14	6.10352E-05	16384
15	3.05176E-05	32768
16	1.52588E-05	65536
17	7.62939E-06	131072
18	3.8147E-06	262144
19	1.90735E-06	524288
20	9.53674E-07	1048576
21	4.76837E-07	2097152
22	2.38419E-07	4194304
23	1.19209E-07	8388608
24	5.96046E-08	16777216
25	2.98023E-08	33554432
26	1.49012E-08	67108864
27	7.45058E-09	134217728
28	3.72529E-09	268435456
29	1.86265E-09	536870912
30	9.31323E-10	1073741824