Renowned Origami Mathematician To Speak—

Art And Science Bond

In Origami Exhibition At WestConn

DANBURY — The art of paper folding may have begun hundreds of years ago, but Dr Robert J. Lang, once a NASA laser physicist and now an acclaimed origamist, has created a growing market and interest for modern origami that he will share at Western Connecticut State University.

Dr Lang will lecture and display several of his intricate creations in “From Flapping Birds to Space Telescopes: The Modern Science of Origami” at 7 pm on Friday, April 4, in the Westside Campus Center Ballroom on the university’s westside campus, Lake Avenue Extension in Danbury. The event will be free and open to the public.

The lecture is a stop on Dr Lang’s exhibit tour, “Masters of Origami.” He was recently on CNN and also recently lectured about his work at Stanford University.

Dr Lang is trained as a physicist with a PhD from the California Institute of Technology. He has 47 patents and is editor-in-chief of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Journal of Quantum Electronics.

Dr Lang is well known throughout the scientific and origami communities as one of the first to explore the close relationship between origami and mathematics. He has traveled around the world to speak at international origami conventions and was the first Westerner invited to speak at the Nippon Origami Association’s annual meeting in Japan.

“In the past ten years, he has brought origami from being an art to a science and has really bridged the gap between the two fields,” said Rona Gurkewitz, chairperson of WCSU’s computer science department. “For a while, he had two careers going at once. Now, he does more origami but keeps his finger in the laser physics outlet.”

An origamist who has known Dr Lang for 25 years, it was Ms Gurkewitz who invited Dr Lang to visit WestConn.

Dr Lang is able to put his origami skills to work in the math and science fields. Engineers have consulted him when designing air bags for automobiles and expandable space telescopes. He has presented several of his origami-math technical papers at mathematical and computer science professional meetings.

In addition to writing several origami books, Dr Lang designed and wrote two software programs that help him analyze the design’s core mathematics and visualize the precise angle of each fold. He has crafted a wide array of complex pieces, each one lifelike and meticulously constructed. Designs include gorillas, a full orchestra, a moose and a grasshopper.

“His computer programs have allowed for the complexity of origami to really take off and expand,” said Ms Gurkewitz. “He is the wave of the future.”

Dr Lang’s work has been shown in cities across the country and is on display at the Museum of Modern Art’s “Design and the Elastic Mind” exhibition.

For more information, call Rona Gurkewitz at 837-9354 or the WCSU Office of University Relations at 837-8486.