MY STORY WITH READER'S DIGEST

I've been a regular reader of RD since I do not know when. Could have been since sixty years. This story happened with me more than fifty years back and I will never forget it. 

Some time in the year 1958, I read an article in RD stating  that if you fold a piece of paper over itself fifty times, the thickness reached would be equivalent to the distance of travel from the earth to the moon and back for an x number of times. I was fascinated but not surprised by the answer, knowing then, as a high school student, what geometric progression in algebra is about. 

Later that same year,  I sat for an interview facing a panel of three professors to qualify for acceptance as a student to the Faculty of Engineering at the American University of Beirut. I had been preparing  myself for weeks reviewing my textbooks of math, science, history, geography et al. 

The first question asked was "if you fold a piece of paper fifty times, how thick would it get?"

-"If you know the thickness of the sheet, you can find out using the formula of geometric progression," I answered and wrote the formula on the blackboard. 

-" Do you think it could reach up from here to there?" asked the professor  pointing to end of the room. 

I realized immediately the professor had also read the article and was trying to pull my leg. 

-"Oh no, the result would be astronomical. The ensuing thickness is an x multiple of the distance between the earth and the moon" I answered. 

The interview ended there and then with that single question. No need for more and I was accepted. They realized I was not that person whose leg could be pulled. Good material for a future engineer. 

By the way, I got hooked on RD here in Lebanon through my late father who himself was a regular reader, and my mother who at one time was regular to Al-Mokhtar, the Arabic version of RD.