Math in the News
Origami: A Blend of Sculpture and Mathematics
Smithsonian Magazine looks at the mathematics behind Erik Demaine’s (MIT) origami sculptures in conjunction with an exhibition at the Renwick Gallery.
Demaine, the world’s top computational origami theorist, has created a series of sculptures by folding concentric squares into square pieces of paper, alternating mountain and valley, and folding the diagonals. With each sculpture, the paper pops into a saddle shape called a hyperbolic paraboloid and stays there. Its accordion-like folds are pretty to look at, but Demaine, a computer science professor at MIT, isn’t sure how it works.
Three works by Demaine and his father Martin are on display in “4o Under 40: Craft Futures,” an exhibition at the Smithsonian’s Renwick Gallery through February 3, 2013.