History Main / FoldThePageFoldTheSpace

SubTrope of LaymansTerms and PhlebotinumAnalogy.

* ''Literature/TheLongWayToASmallAngryPlanet'' features a crew of space travellers whose job is to construct wormholes, or tunnels, for intergalactic travel in a story set in a somewhat unified galaxy. These tunnels allow the public to travel from space to space in a way that's akin to an average commute, maintaining the consistency of time despite the actual speed of light between spaces. Newcomer ship clerk Rosemary Harper gets a crash-course on how tunnelling works from ship mechanic and resident {{Cloudcuckoolander}} Kizzy Shao, who begins by using her porridge and the space above it as an example of the distance their ship travels to "punch" a hole within the fabric of space. She's about to launch a blueberry across the counter with a spoon when she remembers she "can't fold porridge", and uses a much more foldable napkin instead. It plays out pretty much similarly with all the other examples, though emphasis is made on the work involved in keeping the sublayer (the "space" between space) from ripping apart after they've punched two holes through space.

* ''Anime/DoraemonTheRecordOfNobitaSpaceblazer'' has the spaceship belonging to Ropporu and Chammy unexpectedly having their back hatch connecting to the floorboards of Nobita's bedroom after Ropporu tried escaping the Garutite Corporation's mooks via hyperspace. As Nobita tried pondering the concept of hyperspace travel, Ropporu rolls a piece of A4 to demonstrate how it works. Nobita, being TheDitz, then questions [[ComicallyMissingThePoint if the galaxy's indeed made of paper, how much paper would it take to create an actual universe]]. (cue Rorrpou doing a FaceFault)

* ''Anime/DoraemonTheRecordOfNobitaSpaceblazer'' has the spaceship belonging to Ropporu and Chammy unexpectedly opening in the floorboards of Nobita's bedroom after Ropporu tried escaping the Garutite Corporation's mooks via hyperspace. As Nobita tried pondering the concept of hyperspace travel, Ropporu rolls a piece of A4 to demonstrate how it works. Nobita, being TheDitz, then questions [[ComicallyMissingThePoint if the galaxy's indeed made of paper, how much paper would it take to create an actual universe]]. (cue Rorrpou doing a FaceFault)

* In ''Literature/AWrinkleInTime'', the protagonists are shown an ant walking across a cloth, how it has to travel such a far distance to get from one side to the other. But, by folding the cloth so that the two ends are right beside each other, the ant can travel the whole distance by only going a few steps.

* Happens in ''Film/DejaVu'' when Doug demands a LaymansTerms explanation for how the scientists established a live feed connection to a timeline four days in the past. Denny holds up a blank sheet of paper and then folds it to explain how they folded space and time to create a wormhole into the past.

* In the series finale of ''WesternAnimation/PhineasAndFerb'', Candace and Doofenshmirtz the world in a GroundhogDayLoop and notice that the day gets shorter with every loop, erasing parts of the world in the process. Baljeet explains this phenomenon using a paper towel. He uses a hook to rip a strand from the paper towel, representing the disruption in the time-space continuum, and keeps ripping the paper shorter and shorter until nothing is left. His conclusion is that, left untreated, the time loop will eventually whittle down the universe into nothingness.

-->'''Romilly:''' So they say you want to go from here, to there. ''[holds up a blank sheet]'' But this is too far. So a wormhole bends space like this so you can take a shortcut through a higher dimension. ''[folds paper and pierces it with a pen]'' Okay so, to show that they've turned three-dimensional space into two dimensions, which turns a wormhole in two dimensions? ... A circle. What's a circle in three dimensions?\\

* In the series finale of ''WesternAnimation/PhineasAndFerb'', Candace and Doofenshmirtz the world in a GroundhogDayLoop and notice that the day gets shorter with every loop, erasing parts of the world in the process. Baljeet explains this phenomenon using a paper towel. He uses a hook to rip a stream from the paper towel, representing the disruption in the time-space continuum, and keeps ripping the paper shorter and shorter until nothing is left. His conclusion is that, left untreated, the time loop will eventually whittle down the universe into nothingness.

* In the series finale of ''WesternAnimation/PhineasAndFerb'', Candace and Doofenshmirtz the world in a GroundhogDayLoop and notice that the day gets shorter with every loop, erasing parts of the world in the process. Baljeet explains this phenomenon using a paper towel. He uses a hook to rip a stream from the paper towel, representing the disruption in the time-space continuum, and keeps ripping the paper shorter and shorter until nothing is left. His conclusion is that, left untreated, the time loop will eventually whittle down the universe into nothingness.

* In ''Film/EventHorizon'', the ship's designer William Weir (Sam Neill), demonstrates the concept with the centerfold page from a magazine.

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* As noted above, in the ''Film/{{Interstellar}}'' example, space being three-dimensional instead of two-dimensional means that if wormholes existed things would be more complicated, them being spherical and tunneling through an extra dimension--and that the similar comparison of a black hole with the funnel caused by something heavy put in an elastic sheet is a simplification; it being also a sphere. [[MindScrew Better not to think too much about it]].