High Tech Origami
This is the second time I’ve embedded a video from the TED conferences. (In the past I mused about the “Kiki / Buba” psychological phonetics experiment related to synesthesia posited by Dr. Vilayanur Ramachandran. I also highly suggested Burt Rutan’s talk.) Last time I only dropped the relevant clip onto the page, but this time the whole thing is related to Japan. Origami is a traditional Japanese art, after all. Therefore I have chosen to embed the native TED video player here. (I have no reason to suspect that they’ll pull their own video, after all.)
I actually discovered Robert Lang through his website when one of my friends in America sent me a bunch of random links they thought were cool. I was knocked out by his work. Then I happened to catch this lecture in my catch-up podcast combing. It really makes sense that folding methodology would lead scientists to borrow from artists who borrowed from mathematicians. I enjoy silly topology experiments (like this and this) sometimes when I’m bored and not learning physics. Yes, my interests are both legitimate and juvenile at the same time. LOVE IT. Anyway, I’m surprised that these worlds hadn’t merged in a more visible way before. I love it when cultural coolness from the old days turns into cutting edge technological prowess.
Interestingly enough, origami in space has been in the headlines at Tofugu this year already, albeit on a much dumber (and smaller - 3.1 inches, to be exact) level. And Japan Probe has done posts on at least 3 modern origami masters; Robert Lang (American) from the above speech, Eric Joisel (French), and Satoshi Kamiya (Japanese).