TED 2008: Robert Lang, origami expert

(I'm liveblogging from TED 2008, in Monterey, CA)

Presenter: Robert Lang, origami expert

Origami has been around for 100s of years. It didn't change until 1970s when it experienced a Cambrian explosion in variety and techniques. It got richer and more interesting because people started applying math.

The secret to origami, and so many other things, is to let dead people do your work for you, like looking at the geometry of disk packing.

Four simple laws can give rise to very rich complexity in origami. They have to do with properties of crease patterns, angles around a vertex, layer orders, and valleys and ridges. If you obey these laws you can make anything. He has a program on his website that will show you the fold patterns needed to make anything. (You give it a stick figure, it shows you the folds.)

He shows how he uses these mathematical ideas to fold a square sheet of paper into anything.

Origami has applications in other areas, like a solar array that flew in a Japanese satellite telescope, umbrella telescope, solar sail, airbag, heart stent (origami may save a life).

• [whoknew]

  Woo hoo! Lang’s a family friend, and a really cool guy. Check out this “interview” (admittedly, some kind of an ad or endorsement for/of Apple):
  http://www.apple.com/science/profiles/origami/?sr=hotnews

• [Snowpea]

  I saw him at a talk about 18 months ago when he came to Montreal at McGill University to fold a giant pterodactyls for the science museum. He’s a very engaging speaker. You can see a picture of him working on the critter here
  http://www.mcgill.ca/reporter/39/15/

• [Tits McGee]

  Lang’s work is beautiful. Susan Orlean wrote a nice piece on him in the New Yorker last year.

  Erik Demaine at MIT does some amazing work with computational origami, and currently has three pieces on display at MoMA as part of their “Design and the Elastic Mind” exhibit.

• [Takuan]

  wow! when the image came up my first thought was “where did he get a pteranodon skin?” I wonder what they would have made of him in Japan a century ago? I mean, besides a god.

• [Waterlilygirl]

  Robert Lang is going to be at the Peabody Essex Museum April 25th and 26th for a lecture, a demo and a workshop. PEM.org for info. Go to current exhibits and click on the Orgami Now! for info.

• [Anonymous]

  Hi, My name is Grant. Trying to talk to an expert Origami expert folder who might be interested in applying their knowledge to very thin copper foil or thin oz. sheet metal for outdoor ornaments.
  Please e-mail me at [e-mail] if you wouldn’t mind me asking a few questions and possibly coming up with a plan of action. Thanks!

• [kuanes]

  link to this origami-fold-anything site?

• [dfs_toronto]

  The power of Google compels you.

  http://www.langorigami.com/

• [bnjmn]

  http://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en-us&q=%22Robert+Lang%22&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8

• [Zan]

  I still can’t find a link to the program that creates instructions for folding paper into any shape.

• [oschene]

  One has but to look:
  http://www.langorigami.com/science/treemaker/treemaker5.php4
  But this may not give the sort of instructions you’re imagining.