![]() Today, Hull uses origami when he teaches, finding ways to tie it into to concepts in calculus, number theory, geometry and algebra. "But I had no clue what it was, because I was 10." There's got to be math here,' " recalls Tom Hull, an associate professor of mathematics at Western New England College in Springfield, Mass. ![]() "I remember being 10 years old and unfolding an origami crane and looking at the crease pattern and thinking, 'There are all these nice geometric lines and points. Lang isn't the only math and science wonk enchanted by paper folding. (He has also published seven books of folding instructions.) He has a full schedule of lectures plus scientific commissions, art sales and commercial advertising projects, including origami creations for McDonald's, Mitsubishi and Toyota. In 2003, Lang published "Origami Design Secrets: Mathematical Methods for an Ancient Art," a book that has become the bible for complex origami designers. Lang mostly creates single-sheet origami without any cutting, taping or gluing. "The things we do for fun and pleasure turn out to have practical applications, and in the case of origami, it might save a life," Lang says. Oxford University researchers have used origami techniques to design stents, which must be small enough for doctors to thread through a blood vessel but then pop open big enough to hold the artery or vein open. Lang has also worked on computer models for folding car air bags. But the Eyeglass was never sent into space for lack of funding. A prototype demonstrated that hinged panes of glass could be used to compact the lens down to dimensions of no more than about 13 feet without degrading the optical performance. Origami principles were ideal for the task because the lens, called the Eyeglass, needed to be big - about the size of a football field - once in space but also small enough to be shot into orbit by a rocket. About 10 years ago, for instance, Lang collaborated with Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory to design a telescope lens that could go to space. He and others are using the Japanese art form to solve scientific problems. ![]() ![]() "There's a joy of discovery and of being the first explorer in this little nook." "In both origami and science, you're discovering patterns and relationships that, in a sense, already existed before we discovered them," Lang says. Lang is pushing the limits of what one can make by folding paper, but he's also a leader in an emerging field called computational origami. Try a rattlesnake with 1,500 scales or a life-size replica of comedian Drew Carey. Then in 2001, he gave it up to fold paper. He worked at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, researching lasers used in fiber-optic communications, before switching to a private technology firm in Silicon Valley, where he held positions such as chief scientist and vice president of research and development. “Lang creates creatures of such complexity that it seems impossible that each is composed of a single sheet of paper, no cuts, no glue.” - Apple.Robert Lang had a good career as a laser physicist. Now a professional origami master, Lang practices his craft as both artist and engineer, one day folding the smallest of insects and the next the largest of space-bound telescope lenses. His acuity for mathematics would lead him to become a physicist at the California Institute of Technology, and the owner of nearly fifty patents on lasers and optoelectronics. As a first-grader, Lang proved far too clever for elementary mathematics and quickly became bored, prompting his teacher to give him a book on origami. The marriage of mathematics and origami harkens back to Lang's own childhood. Each work is the result of software (which Lang himself pioneered) that manipulates thousands of mathematical calculations in the production of a "folding map" of a single creature. His repertoire includes a snake with one thousand scales, a two-foot-tall allosaurus skeleton, and a perfect replica of a Black Forest cuckoo clock. ![]() Origami, as Robert Lang describes it, is simple: "You take a creature, you combine it with a square, and you get an origami figure." But Lang's own description belies the technicality of his art indeed, his creations inspire awe by sheer force of their intricacy. ![]()
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