Was Your Grocery Store Out of Toilet Paper This Weekend? This Could Be Why.

Anyone who stopped by the Infinite Corridor on Sunday may have been surprised to find more than 10 miles of toilet paper lining the hallway. But this was no hack and, fortunately, no bathroom emergency. It was a group of students and faculty from St. Mark’s preparatory school who claim to have set the world record for folding paper.

From Boston.com:

Seventeen students from the boarding school in Southborough worked with mathematics teacher Dr. James Tanton to fold 53,000 feet of toilet paper in half 13 times Sunday using the climate-controlled confines of the 825-foot hallway known as the Infinite Corridor at MIT.

Working for almost eight hours, the students used jumbo rolls of toilet paper with more 2,000 feet in each roll. The ends were taped together and the long piece folded in half until it was only five feet long, two-and-a-half-feet high, and 8,192 layers.

Following the thirteenth fold, the paper was secured and bused to the school’s Southborough campus. While a paper-folding category does not currently exist in the Guinness Book of World Records, Tanton told Boston.com that he would submit a request to create the category.

The students were a guest of OrigaMIT, MIT's origami club. Sunday’s folding session was the group’s second attempt to break the record at MIT this year. On April 3, the students successfully folded 13,000 feet of single-ply toilet paper 12 times—tying the unofficial high school record—but their thirteenth fold was ruled invalid when OrigaMIT President Jason Ku deemed it unable to stand on its own.