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The Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology (SMART) Centre and the NUS Department of Mathematics would like to invite you to a seminar on....
Mathematical Origami: Transforming Flapping Birds into Space Telescopes
By Robert J. Lang
Abstract:
The last decade of this past century has been witness to a revolution in the development and application of mathematical techniques to origami, the centuries-old Japanese art of paper-folding. The techniques used in mathematical origami design range from the abstruse to the highly approachable, but their introduction into origami over the past decades has revolutionized the art. In this talk, I will describe how geometric concepts led to the solution of a broad class of origami folding problems – specifically, the problem of efficiently folding a shape with an arbitrary number and arrangement of flaps, and along the way, enabled origami designs of mind-blowing complexity and realism. Those techniques have been built upon by mathematical, computer scientists, and origami technologists of all stripes, leading to fully 3D computer-aided origami design, phenomenally complex origami tessellations, and have even solved practical engineering problems, many of which have been first reported at these Origami Science and Mathematics conferences since the first in 1989. I will discuss several examples of how origami has enabled safer airbags, Brobdingnagian space telescopes, and more.
Biography:
Robert J. Lang has been an avid student of origami for some forty years and is now recognized as one of the world's leading masters of the art. He is one of the pioneers of the cross-disciplinary marriage of origami with mathematics and science and organized the 2006 Fourth International Meeting on Origami in Science, Mathematics, and Education at Caltech. He has consulted with commercial companies and U.S. national laboratories on applications of origami to medical devices, air-bag design, and space telescopes, is the author or co-author of nine books and numerous articles on origami and lectures on the connections between origami, mathematics, science, and technology and in 2009 was awarded Caltech's highest honor, the Distinguished Alumni Award.
Date: Monday, 19 July 2010
Time: 3:00pm – 4:00pm
Venue: NUS University Hall Auditorium
Level 2, University Hall, Lee Kong Chian Wing,
21 Lower Kent Ridge Road, Singapore 119044
RSVP by 13 July 2010, to events@smart.mit.edu
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