Origami 4: Fourth International Meeting of Origami Science, Mathematics, and Education

The connections between origami, mathematics, science, technology, and education have been a topic of considerable interest now for several decades. While many individuals have happened upon discrete connections among these fields during the twentieth century, the field really took off when previously isolated individuals began to make stronger connections with each other through a series of conferences exploring the links between origami and "the outside world." The Fourth International Meeting on Origami in Science, Mathematics, and Education (4OSME), held in September, 2006, at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, California, brought together an unprecedented number of researchers presenting on topics ranging from mathematics, to technology, to educational uses of origami, to fine art, and to computer programs for the design of origami. Selected papers based on talks presented at that conference make up the book you hold in your hands.

An avid student of origami for more than 40 years, Robert J. Lang is regarded as a leading master of the art, with over 500 designs catalogued and diagrammed. Following a successful career as a physicist and engineer, during which he authored or coauthored over 80 papers and 50 patents awarded and pending on lasers, optoelectronics, folding, and computational origami, he is now a full-time origami artist.Lang's work combines aspects of the Western school of mathematical origami design with the Eastern emphasis on line and form to yield models distinctive, elegant, and challenging to fold. His work has been shown in New York's Museum of Modern Art; Paris's Carrousel du Louvre; the Peabody Essex Museum, in Salem, Massachusetts; San Diego's Mingei International Museum; and the Nippon Origami Museum, in Kaga, Japan, among others. In 1992, Lang became the first Westerner invited to address the Nippon Origami Association's annual meeting, and he has been an invited guest at international origami conventions around the world.A pioneer of the cross-disciplinary marriage of origami with mathematics, Lang has been one of the few Western columnists for Origami Tanteidan Magazine, the journal of the Japan Origami Academic Society. He is the author or coauthor of nine books and has consulted on applying origami to engineering problems ranging from air-bag design to expandable space telescopes. He is a fellow of the Optical Society of America, a member of the IEEE Photonics Society, and editor in chief of the IEEE Journal of Quantum Electronics.