Teaching Binary (powers of two)

A classic example!

2^0, or 2 to the power of 0, is equal to 1.

The paper folding example illustrates the concept of exponential growth. Imagine folding a paper in half repeatedly:

  1. Fold 1: 2 sheets (2^1)
  2. Fold 2: 4 sheets (2^2)
  3. Fold 3: 8 sheets (2^3)
  4. Fold 4: 16 sheets (2^4)
  5. Fold 5: 32 sheets (2^5)

And so on…

But what about Fold 0? That’s where 2^0 comes in! With no folds (2^0), you have 1 sheet of paper.

This example helps visualize how exponential functions work, and how 2^0 serves as the base case, equal to 1.

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