When Origami Meets Rocket Science - Article in the Washington Post - May 11, 2010

When Origami Meets Rocket Science - Article in The Washington Post - May 11, 2010

Robert J. Lang had a good career as a laser physicist. He worked at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, researching semiconductor 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. Then in 2001, he gave it all up. To fold paper. Lang, 49, is an origami master. Paper cranes? Pshaw. Try a rattlesnake with 1,500 scales, a life-size replica of comedian Drew Carey or an American flag that was photographed for the New York Times magazine. Lang is pushing the limits of what one can make by folding paper, but he's also a leader in an emerging field of study called computational origami, which he boils down to this question: "How do you use rules and math to create an object of art?" "In both origami and science, you're discovering patterns and relationships that, in a sense, already existed before we discovered them," Lang says. "There's a joy of discovery and of being the first explorer in this little nook." He and others are using the Japanese art form to solve scientific problems. The wonk factor

Lang isn't the only math and science wonk enchanted by paper folding. "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. There's got to be math here,' " recalls Tom Hull, an associate professor of mathematics at Western New England College in Springfield, Mass. "But I had no clue what it was, because I was 10." Today, Hull uses origami when he teaches, finding ways to tie it into to concepts in calculus, number theory, geometry and algebra. He says it's a quick way to engage his students and to help them understand vague concepts in a visual way. In 2006, he published "Project Origami," a book filled with activities that teachers can use in math classes. "Kids are so afraid of math. The world is so afraid of math," Hull says. "But with origami, they're not thinking, 'I'm doing this scary math thing,' they're just folding paper. It's a neat way to break the barriers down."

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