Comments on: Giant Origami Fractal

By: Ben Fritzson

Ben Fritzson — Fri, 23 Nov 2012 21:27:00 +0000

Strictly speaking, Origami involves one uncut unadorned square of paper. In practice, each of those five qualities is accepted or rejected on a widely variable basis.

Cutting is most widely frowned upon (though many early models relied on it).

Almost no one cares if the paper is decorated, but most prefer to have the figure’s features defined by the folds (stripes and spirals good, drawn eyes or faces bad).

The vast majority of folders use paper, but many of us use a wide variety of materials including sheet metal, thin sheets of wood and an assortment of edible options.

Most models are built for squares, but many use a variety of rectangles (when folding currency or the euro-prevalent A4) and some even use triangles, pentagons and hexagaons.

Lastly, while the bulk of origami, especially organic forms, uses a single sheet, there are countless innovative geometric designs that use multiple sheets. While many of these models are hypothetically possible with a single sheet, the necessary thickness would make them impossible in reality. Modular origami is a widely practiced subset of the art. Models that use more than one sheet where one would do are less appreciated by practitioners of the art.

By: John Aspinall

John Aspinall — Wed, 21 Nov 2012 15:17:00 +0000

Then no-one has ever drawn a fractal either… because they didn’t use an infinite amount of ink/pixels.

Here in the reasonable world, some of you are welcome to insist on calling this a limited resolution rendering of a mathematical object that has an infinite amount of detail. The rest of us will skip to the chase and use the same name for the object and its rendering, where the context is clear and there’s no confusion.

By: Perry Bonewell

Perry Bonewell — Wed, 21 Nov 2012 12:29:00 +0000

Without wanting to sound mean spirited, isn’t the whole point of origami that it gets made out of a single sheet of paper?

By: Nathan G

Nathan G — Wed, 21 Nov 2012 10:50:00 +0000

All I can think is “I wonder how to make this in minecraft”

By: Singe

Singe — Wed, 21 Nov 2012 03:28:00 +0000

When I first saw this article on Boing Boing I thought “this reminds me of that person who made a Menger sponge out of business cards a while back.”

And it is that person.

By: Joe Alfano

Joe Alfano — Tue, 20 Nov 2012 23:52:00 +0000

I had the pleasure of attending a lecture/workshop by Jeannine Mosely at MIT in the mid-1980′s: “Paperfolding Stellated Polyhedra”. Her talent for designing simple paper modules that assemble into beautiful mathematical shapes is sheer genius.

By: duncancreamer

duncancreamer — Tue, 20 Nov 2012 22:43:00 +0000

We have one of these – slightly smaller – in our office. After moving offices and we had a bunch of extra cards, so instead of chucking them out, the Creative department stuck them all together. We made the sponge.

By: Boundegar

Boundegar — Tue, 20 Nov 2012 22:33:00 +0000

49,000 business cards is not enough – it’s not fractal unless it’s infinite.

By: imaguid

imaguid — Tue, 20 Nov 2012 22:15:00 +0000

i think you must be right about it being for this particular fractal, since i’ve had a level 2 menger sponge (modular, made out of business cards) sitting on my desk for a few years now.

By: John Aspinall

John Aspinall — Tue, 20 Nov 2012 21:07:00 +0000

I think the “first time” is referring to this particular fractal; clearly it can’t be any fractal.

Congratulations J9!

By: David Nash

David Nash — Tue, 20 Nov 2012 20:45:00 +0000

“first time in the history of the world” … Apart from the entire plant kingdom… And possibly all of life?