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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from how Stuff

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Speaker 1: Works dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.

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Speaker 1: My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Julie Douglas. Julie,

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Speaker 1: are you aware of the ongoing crisis Julie's face, Uh,

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Speaker 1: in this country, but also been really around the world, um,

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Speaker 1: in which normal sheets of paper, flat sheets of paper

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Speaker 1: have taken on the former, perhaps with the aid of

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Speaker 1: human hands, into three dimensional shapes, often animal shapes. Um.

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Speaker 1: And then they're just loose, they're they're they're they're on

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Speaker 1: our Chinese takeout, they are in our hotel rooms in

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Speaker 1: the form of towel creatures. It's the Origami menace. And

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Speaker 1: I've seen it everywhere. Yeah, and then what are you

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Speaker 1: supposed to do when you need a towel? It's taken

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Speaker 1: on the form of a duck or a monkey, or

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Speaker 1: he's a paper for your grocery list. It's all twisted

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Speaker 1: up into this elegant swan, and you have to essentially

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Speaker 1: murder the swan in order to find out what you're

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Speaker 1: supposed to buy. You have to murder a monkey in

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Speaker 1: order to tale yourself off. Actually sometimes cut the heads off.

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Speaker 1: That's really frowned upon. Yeah, my daughter doesn't like it

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Speaker 1: cutting the heads off of monkeys, of her monkeys. No,

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Speaker 1: no paper monkeys, she cuts the heads off. I do, okay,

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Speaker 1: just all right, kid, I kid, But actually her babysitter

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Speaker 1: creates oregony. Her babysitter we could do an entire episode

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Speaker 1: on because she's like one of those like super teens

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Speaker 1: who is you know, volunteering in a neuroscience lab and

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Speaker 1: also practices falconry as well as softball and oregonmy excellently.

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Speaker 1: So I have been introduced to it in several different ways,

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Speaker 1: but one of my favorite ways is in a documentary

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Speaker 1: Between the Full Yes, this is an excellent documentary came

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Speaker 1: out a few years back, and I saw it for

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Speaker 1: the first time, I think on Netflix streaming, and I

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Speaker 1: think I did a blog post about it, and then

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Speaker 1: convinced myself that we had recorded a podcast about it

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Speaker 1: because I was looking for the other day and with

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Speaker 1: that podcast we did on oregony, and there I was, oh,

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Speaker 1: we never did one. I think we both saw it

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Speaker 1: and we were so like, oh, this is great and

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Speaker 1: really amped up and then checked it off. Yeah, that

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Speaker 1: was an awesome pal pest on it. Um so we're

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Speaker 1: really happy that it came back around because, Uh, that

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Speaker 1: documentary is fascinating and really plumbs the depth of this

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Speaker 1: artistic form which is informing all sorts of stuff like

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Speaker 1: applied mathematics and engineering, and we'll talk about that. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it is organ me such a fascinating topic because it

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Speaker 1: it all begins with paper, which is essentially a recent

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Speaker 1: occurrence on the planet. Yeah. Actually, the Chinese first invented

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Speaker 1: paper around one D and five a d. And then

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Speaker 1: during the sixth century, Buddhist monks introduced paper to Japan,

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Speaker 1: and as in China, it became a rare and expensive

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Speaker 1: product and it was prized and it was reserved usually

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Speaker 1: for special occasions in religious rituals. But as it became

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Speaker 1: more common, so did paper folding. And if you look

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Speaker 1: at the word or a gami, it's a Japanese word

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Speaker 1: in oru means to fold and commy means paper. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: the the premium status of paper, I feel like I

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Speaker 1: can't be overstated because again, for the for the longest,

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Speaker 1: for the vast majority of human history, there was no paper,

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Speaker 1: and then as paper began to present itself, paper was

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Speaker 1: was a premium item to possess and if you had it,

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Speaker 1: you were you were making proper use of it. You

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Speaker 1: were writing on it, you were in you know, and

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Speaker 1: you were you were drawing on it. You were creating

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Speaker 1: art or or or committing language to the paper, and

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Speaker 1: in many cases erasing that information or writing or drawing

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Speaker 1: or painting. Oh, because the paper itself was so valuable

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Speaker 1: that you were never going to crumple it up, even

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Speaker 1: just to throw it in the waste basket. Now, if

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Speaker 1: you could elevate it to an art form, you could

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Speaker 1: also begin to involve it in some serious ceremonial purposes, right,

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Speaker 1: so then it could be used as this other representation

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Speaker 1: of I guess you could say religion or spirit to

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Speaker 1: express some of the thoughts and philosophy behind that. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: because I mean, I mean, it's easy to to see

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Speaker 1: how you end up putting these sacred ideas into the

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Speaker 1: paper itself, because the language becomes sacred, artistic interpretations of

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Speaker 1: things become sacred, and if they're committed to the paper,

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Speaker 1: the paper becomes sacred in its own right. And then

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Speaker 1: you began to manipulate this two dimensional, essentially two dimensional

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Speaker 1: surface into three dimensions. And uh, and just the the

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Speaker 1: symbolic power of that is pretty obvious. Yeah, and there

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Speaker 1: it's no accident that nature is highly represented in the

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Speaker 1: form of origami, right, because this is something would have

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Speaker 1: been in the Japanese tradition to really uphold nature as

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Speaker 1: something that you would want to replicate in any way

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Speaker 1: that you could. Yes, you get into the Shinto aspects

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Speaker 1: of of their being a sort of holiness in all

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Speaker 1: in all the corners of nature, and certainly in animals,

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Speaker 1: and therefore u to to transform the paper into an

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Speaker 1: animal is itself a sacred thing. Now. This comes from

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Speaker 1: the house Stuff Works article how Origami Works. It says

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Speaker 1: that one of the oldest and most direct references to

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Speaker 1: paper folding appeared in a sixteen eighty Japanese poem by

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Speaker 1: Ahara saka Ku, in which the author writes about paper

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Speaker 1: butterflies that appear in a dream, which I think is

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Speaker 1: just lovely, yes, and then in the se that's when

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Speaker 1: you see. Akasto Rito wrote the first instructions for paper

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Speaker 1: folding and a work called simbarazo ricata, which means thousand

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Speaker 1: crane foldings um ricata trans like it means folded shapes.

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Speaker 1: But in nine in the nineteenth century or agamy becomes

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Speaker 1: the more common term now, the thousand crane foldings that

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Speaker 1: plays into this ancient Japanese legend that promises that anyone

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Speaker 1: who folds a thousand or agamy cranes will be granted

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Speaker 1: a wish by the crane, or you'll have some sort

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Speaker 1: of the dream manifested. And I actually have a couple

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Speaker 1: of friends who did this one year. I think they

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Speaker 1: did for for like a New Year's type of thing,

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Speaker 1: where they set out to fold a thousand paper cranes,

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Speaker 1: and I think one I I don't remember how the

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Speaker 1: dream uh, you know, wish granting thing worked out, but

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Speaker 1: there seems to be a law in place that the

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Speaker 1: the closer you get to that thousand crane point, the

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Speaker 1: more your paper cranes are going to resemble art varks

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Speaker 1: rather than because your fingers are gonna get kind of sore,

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Speaker 1: your works become becoming more and more imperfect, and by

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Speaker 1: the end they look they still look like animals, but

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Speaker 1: maybe not crane. Maybe it's your perceptionist cued too, because

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Speaker 1: you know how if you you stare at certain words,

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Speaker 1: all of a sudden they become alien to you. They

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Speaker 1: stopped being elegant swans full of wishes, and they're more

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Speaker 1: art arts that are trying to chew your fingers off. Now,

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Speaker 1: the father of origami, considered the father of origami, is

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Speaker 1: a Kira your Shizawa, whose majority of work came to

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Speaker 1: notice in the fifties and sixties. And we're talking about

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Speaker 1: a Japanese self taught oregami artist. And in the documentary

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Speaker 1: Between the Folds, he says, quote, all oregami starts with

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Speaker 1: a flat surface, as the as this paper transforms into

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Speaker 1: three dimensions, Origami has within it all the possibilities we

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Speaker 1: associate with creative art. And I thought that to me

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Speaker 1: is really underscoring the power of origami, especially when we

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Speaker 1: talk about it and applied mathematics and engineering, these possibilities

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Speaker 1: that it contains within it. And just to give you

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Speaker 1: an idea of how prolific you Shizawa was, he created

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Speaker 1: fifty thousand models, but he never sold a single one.

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Speaker 1: And he sort of red volutionized the whole oregamy because

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Speaker 1: he used moist paper so that he could sculpt more

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Speaker 1: expressive lines into his creations. And some say that he

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Speaker 1: even um created the language for oragamy, diagramming all of them.

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Speaker 1: So now today, if you crack open an orogami book,

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Speaker 1: you'll see these diagrams, which is what your Shizawa started

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Speaker 1: doing to document his process, you know. And I think

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Speaker 1: that's one of the the the aspects of Oregonmy that

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Speaker 1: really appeals to everyone is because and so certainly I

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Speaker 1: find myself thinking about this. You see a really neat

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Speaker 1: piece of origami, and and you you admire the beauty

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Speaker 1: of it, you admire the skill in the artistry, but

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Speaker 1: then you also know that there is a diagram that

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Speaker 1: shows you, step by step how to get from point

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Speaker 1: A this blank, featureless paper right out of the stack

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Speaker 1: beside your printer, and how to transform that into that

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Speaker 1: elegant creature. That there are steps to fall, and therefore

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Speaker 1: it seems so achievable that every time I look at Oregonmy,

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Speaker 1: I I kind of think, hey, maybe I'll learn how

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Speaker 1: to do oregonmy. That could be my thing. Uh, And

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Speaker 1: then I sort of imagine myself doing it and realized

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Speaker 1: that I could probably do a lot of it just

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Speaker 1: by following the instructions, and then I don't even bother

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Speaker 1: to actually go down that road. Well, it is really cool,

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Speaker 1: especially when you look at it in the context of

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Speaker 1: the between the Folds documentary because it will really challenge

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Speaker 1: your notion of what oregonmy is. You think of a swan,

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Speaker 1: and then all of a sudden you see this one

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Speaker 1: guy in Israel who is creating these concentric spirals nested

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Speaker 1: in one another that are actually active. Do they actually move?

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Speaker 1: And you see that sometimes people are coming to this

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Speaker 1: in a very organic, intuitive way, and sometimes people are

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Speaker 1: coming at it in a very mathematical way. In fact,

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Speaker 1: that the documentary really deals with those two schools of thoughts. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: because even the simplest crane, even the you know, the

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Speaker 1: the most adorable oregonomy creature, that is the product of

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Speaker 1: of mathematical precision. That's a matter of these folds, these

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Speaker 1: creases in the paper ultimately creating the mathematical design of

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Speaker 1: that animal in abstract. Yeah. And lest you think that

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Speaker 1: oregonmy is just the sort of you know, informal field, uh,

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Speaker 1: that is very wrong. It's um. There are many different

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Speaker 1: schools of thoughts and forms of origami. In fact, there

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Speaker 1: are different kinds. There's the one that we just describe,

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Speaker 1: which is sort of like your traditional swan. Um. Maybe

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Speaker 1: it has I don't know, twenty steps of diagrams, that

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Speaker 1: you would follow, while you have other ones that are

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Speaker 1: more like three hundred steps of diagram to follow. And

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Speaker 1: you have something called modular, which is just like what

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Speaker 1: you would think of in terms of architecture, like taking

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Speaker 1: two modular units and putting them together. We're talking about

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Speaker 1: separate pieces of paper that are merged to create an

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Speaker 1: incredibly complex sculpture. Then you have action oregonmy and this

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Speaker 1: is oregony that can move with a little human assistance.

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Speaker 1: I believe the oragamy creatures in Blade Runner worked like this,

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Speaker 1: didn't they. You had the the the mustachioed character who

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Speaker 1: kept living little swans, right, the detective yeah, played by

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Speaker 1: Edward almost almost almost yes, Yeah, yeah, great, great actor,

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Speaker 1: and of course he was he played that particularly rolling

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Speaker 1: Blade Run. Yeah. I think that was part of the metaphor.

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Speaker 1: You know, they here is something of human creation that

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Speaker 1: is brought to life with the human touch. Uh be

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Speaker 1: it a replicant or an oregonmy crane, but yes, so

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Speaker 1: action oregamy is designed so that you can manipulate it

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Speaker 1: inneral cause it to move like wings to flap or

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Speaker 1: a frog to jump, et cetera. Yeah. And then you

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Speaker 1: have something called pure land, which is a style of

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Speaker 1: Oregonmy that restricts artists making only one fold at a time,

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Speaker 1: so complex folds are forbidden altogether. And in this you

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Speaker 1: really this example, you see some of this, uh, some

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Speaker 1: of the puzzle solving aspects I think of oregamy emerging

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Speaker 1: how to create things by folding the paper and and

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Speaker 1: having to follow certain rules. I mean not only the

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Speaker 1: physical rules of folding paper, but but also the rules

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Speaker 1: of the particular style of origami. Yeah, and I remember

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Speaker 1: in the documentary, um, it was really interesting they were

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Speaker 1: talking about Euclidean lines. And we've talked about this before.

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Speaker 1: Euclidean lines do not exist in our reality, right, but

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Speaker 1: if you mash, if you fold everything and you mash

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Speaker 1: it down right to one plane again, then you do

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Speaker 1: have Euclidean lines again that they would they would go

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Speaker 1: off into infinity. But you have this idea of how

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Speaker 1: those would work. And that's what's so beautiful about origami

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Speaker 1: is that it really obeys the laws of mathematics. And

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Speaker 1: this was plumped to quite a degree in that documentary,

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Speaker 1: especially with Tom Hall, who works in the math department

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Speaker 1: at marymatt College in and Over, Massachusetts, and he says

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Speaker 1: oregonmy is just such a great way to get your

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Speaker 1: hands dirty with math. It becomes your laboratory for doing math.

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Speaker 1: It can do everything from geometry but also number theory

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Speaker 1: and abstract algebra and linear algebra in bizarre and weird

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Speaker 1: geometry like geometry of the sphere. This isn't just compartmentalized math,

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Speaker 1: but math. It can be wrapped together in weird ways.

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Speaker 1: And in this this all describes, oregony becomes an engineering problem.

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Speaker 1: It ties into the structure of the natural world, of

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Speaker 1: biology of the cosmos. Uh. Again, you're you're you're you're

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Speaker 1: taking mathematics and mathematical purity, and you're also taking this,

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Speaker 1: uh the sheet of paper, which is also a humans construct,

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Speaker 1: and you're using that to to bring math alive in

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Speaker 1: a sense. Yeah, and that's what he was saying. Is

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Speaker 1: so interesting about teaching it that way because essentially, with

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Speaker 1: geometry it's very abstract. And so if you can create

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Speaker 1: this model that has us he says, math and all

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Speaker 1: all different types of math wrapped up in it, and

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Speaker 1: all of a sudden, it becomes something to you. It

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Speaker 1: becomes representational, and that's such a huge part of learning.

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Speaker 1: Now we meet Tom holl in the documentary folds. But

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Speaker 1: we also meet another individual who is quite remarkable, a

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Speaker 1: man by the name of Eric Domain, who is the

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Speaker 1: top Oregami theorist in the world, a professor of computer

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Speaker 1: science at at m I T and a former child prodigy,

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Speaker 1: although he would say it has nothing to do with

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Speaker 1: his accomplishments. No, but but he's a Sherry Bright did

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Speaker 1: He started college at twelve. He got his PhD at twenty,

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Speaker 1: youngest professor ever at m I T. McArthur Genius Award

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Speaker 1: for his research into folding um. He's a remarkable cat

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Speaker 1: and no two ways around. Yeah, And what's interesting is

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Speaker 1: that his dad homeschooled him, and he and his dad

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Speaker 1: are very much a team still, it seems like, because

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Speaker 1: they're their puzzle solvers in addition to doing you know,

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Speaker 1: oregamy and and and him being professor of computers acis

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Speaker 1: as an m I T. But they come at oregamy

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Speaker 1: in this problem solving manner. Yeah, and he's he's very

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Speaker 1: elegant when he's talking about paper to which you might

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Speaker 1: not expect from from a child prodigy M I T

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Speaker 1: computer science paper folding enthusiasts. He's also in a glass

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Speaker 1: blown by the way, but he he describes oregonmy as

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Speaker 1: quote changing the memory of the paper, which is which

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Speaker 1: is a notable statement to make, especially when you get

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Speaker 1: into some of the applications for oregonmy that we're going

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Speaker 1: to discuss about that the physical memory of paper. Uh,

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Speaker 1: you know about about about paper taking on three dimensional forms,

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Speaker 1: et cetera. Yeah, he says that those folds create a

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Speaker 1: kind of tension when there's an organic shape emerging. And

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Speaker 1: I love this. He says, physics finds the right answers

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Speaker 1: and you see this in paper at play. And we'll

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Speaker 1: go into this a bit more. But he has been

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Speaker 1: instrumental in UM looking at d n A proteins and

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Speaker 1: diseases in terms of our agamy, because he says, essentially,

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Speaker 1: when you're looking at DNA, you're looking at a folding pattern,

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Speaker 1: and just to be reductions about it, he's saying that

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Speaker 1: if there's a disease, there's a fold in the wrong place. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: He his work takes him from the micro level to

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Speaker 1: UH to two outer space as well discussed, and his

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Speaker 1: work is really a great example of why oregamy is

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Speaker 1: far from being just this mere hobby, from being this

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Speaker 1: mirror UM you know, abstraction even mathematically speaking, but it

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Speaker 1: is something with various real world applications. Again cloth the

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Speaker 1: side of the human body and in the future out

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Speaker 1: in the boy um. That note, let's take a quick break,

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Speaker 1: and when we get back, we're going to talk about

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Speaker 1: the practical applications of origami. All right, we're back, and

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Speaker 1: we're going to discussed now that some of the practical

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Speaker 1: applications of origami. Some of these are already in place,

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Speaker 1: They're already at work in the world around us. The

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Speaker 1: oregamy has already escaped and is out there. In other cases,

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Speaker 1: we're definitely looking into the future of way that oregamy

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Speaker 1: is going to inform the shape of future technology essentially though,

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Speaker 1: uh a number of these anyway, I'll relate to a

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Speaker 1: basic principle, and that is, if you want to make

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Speaker 1: a flat sheet smaller, you're gonna want to fold it.

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Speaker 1: And if you want mathematical precision in the way you

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Speaker 1: fold it, if you want certain other attributes in play

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Speaker 1: in the way you fold something, then origami is the

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Speaker 1: discipline to seek out. That's right, because we're talking about

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Speaker 1: um in this sense, a kind of action o agami. Right,

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Speaker 1: So you're you're you're shaping the thing and then you're

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Speaker 1: reducing it back to one plane so that it's compact.

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Speaker 1: So if you could do the same thing while you're

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Speaker 1: packing your suitcase, for instance, which I think might be

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Speaker 1: impossible with clothes origami, but you could flatten and then

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Speaker 1: just pop it back up, it would be pretty amazing, right,

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Speaker 1: You could probably get like thirty pounds of clothes into

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Speaker 1: your suitcase. And so if you look at air bags,

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Speaker 1: this is the perfect example of all these things that

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Speaker 1: we've been talking about, because the algorithm used in computer

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Speaker 1: designed air bags is based on artistic folds of origami.

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Speaker 1: So those air bags aren't, you know, arbitrarily just wadded up,

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Speaker 1: but they're folded to create that one dimensional plane that

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Speaker 1: springs into action, that three dimensional life when it's deployed.

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Speaker 1: And in fact, according to Robert J. Ling, who is

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Speaker 1: another one of these um like foremost masters of origami,

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Speaker 1: the air bag flatten algorithm came from all the developments

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Speaker 1: of circle packing and the mathematical theory that was really

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Speaker 1: developed just to create insects. Because he says that in

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Speaker 1: the nineties, if you went to this certain oregamy convention,

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Speaker 1: people were going nuts with insects and seeing how intricate

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Speaker 1: they could get them, and so every year you'd have

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Speaker 1: more and more intricate insects being introduced, or you'd see

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Speaker 1: scorpions one year. It's that desire and drive for artistic

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Speaker 1: excellence that helped to inform the algorithms that created the

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Speaker 1: air bags that we now have in our cars. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that's crazy. I mean to go back to to your

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Speaker 1: example about packing a suitcase. I mean, it's it's essentially there.

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Speaker 1: There are there's a bad way to pack a suitcase.

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Speaker 1: You could probably set around and think of the most

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Speaker 1: impractical way to pack a suitcase so that it would

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Speaker 1: be more of an effort to unpack it. And then

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Speaker 1: there is the most effective way that allows for rapid unpacking.

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Speaker 1: And when an air bag goes off, it's essentially the

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Speaker 1: rapid unpacking of the materials in there. Someone has to

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Speaker 1: come up with this sort of close packing suitcase or

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Speaker 1: a gami. Imagine you just open your suitcase and everything

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Speaker 1: just springs to life. That would that would be good? Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's just it's out there and then you're you're ready

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Speaker 1: to to move on with your stay in the hotel.

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Speaker 1: Um Another area that we see application of oregonmy is

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Speaker 1: in the world of telescopes. Um. Surprisingly enough, Um, we

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Speaker 1: see this in the Eyeglass Telescope and ASA's eyeglass telescope.

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Speaker 1: We see a foldable satellite lens that's designed to unfurl

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Speaker 1: in orbit. And this is just simply a practical way

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Speaker 1: to fold and store a lens that's made of many segments.

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Speaker 1: And again it comes back to the basic principle of Oregonmy.

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Speaker 1: I have something it's large and more or less flat

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Speaker 1: or composed of flat components, and I need to store

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Speaker 1: that in a smaller form. Yeah. And Robert ja ling

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Speaker 1: Uh he actually created this, and he used the umbrella

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Speaker 1: design that folds down to a cylinder and then it

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Speaker 1: pops up. And just as a side note, this guy

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Speaker 1: he ditched his day job at a fiber optics company

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Speaker 1: thirteen years ago to devote himself to folding paper, just

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Speaker 1: as a folding paper artist. And these are some of

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Speaker 1: the applications that have come out of his work. And

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Speaker 1: and just in case anyone is wondering that you will

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Speaker 1: see these individ wills refer to it as folding they

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Speaker 1: because it can sort of sound like, oh, you quit

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Speaker 1: your job to fold paper. But but now they often

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Speaker 1: refer to their passion as as folding um in addition

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Speaker 1: to the use of the more elegant or a gami.

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Speaker 1: As long as we're in space, let's talk about solar sales. UM.

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Speaker 1: There's a there's a particular fold known as the Myriori fold,

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Speaker 1: and this was invented by Japanese astrophysicist Coro Maura. And

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Speaker 1: this is a technology that well you actually see used

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Speaker 1: in various Japanese space program satellites. UM. And again it

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Speaker 1: comes back to the principle. You have this solar sale

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Speaker 1: and we're all familiar with this. This is the uh,

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Speaker 1: the more or less flat surface that is out there

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Speaker 1: to to absorb solar energy for the benefit of the

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Speaker 1: satellite to power the satellite. So you want to be

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Speaker 1: able to pack that into a very compact shape. UH.

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Speaker 1: And you want to fold that can be unpacked in

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Speaker 1: a very in a single motion by pulling an opposite

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Speaker 1: end of the folded material. So this way you reduce

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Speaker 1: because it's it's all about the economy of getting something

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Speaker 1: in orbit. UH. So you want to you want the

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Speaker 1: best fold arrangement possible, and you want to be able

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Speaker 1: to unfold it with a limited amount of energy. You

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Speaker 1: can't have enormous motors cranking that thing out. So the

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Speaker 1: the economy of oregony and the potential of oregony really

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Speaker 1: comes into play here. Yeah, And Brian Tres, who is

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Speaker 1: an engineer a NASA's Jet Propulsion lab, is looking into

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Speaker 1: using this full of this Mariori fold to take materials,

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Speaker 1: apply the fold and then kind of create useful instruments

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Speaker 1: from them. And he's talking about size of meters or

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Speaker 1: atmosphere detectors and sending them up into orbit essentially. So

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Speaker 1: he's talking about even having a printer, sending it into

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Speaker 1: orbit and then if you need a different sensor or

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Speaker 1: a different part, you would just upload the design and

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Speaker 1: then print it out. Why in space. Now this is

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Speaker 1: super sort of like future stuff here, but at the

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Speaker 1: same time, you can see how you can go from

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Speaker 1: something like solar sales to creating these objects that can

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Speaker 1: be you know, flat packed essentially, like you know, ikea

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Speaker 1: parallelogram out there and then printed and creating creating new

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Speaker 1: ones that could be packed down and then uh inflated. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean to bear in mind that you know, we

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Speaker 1: can currently print things like electric circuits like solar cells

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Speaker 1: and and and displays directly onto a into a essentially

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Speaker 1: a two D paper surface, and that that that fact

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Speaker 1: alone really opens up the possibilities of what oregami can be,

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Speaker 1: especially that mariori kind of fold because um, that kind

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Speaker 1: of fold creates this stiffness, but it also can um

406
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Speaker 1: apparently have other properties to it, like spongy nous, which

407
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Speaker 1: is really important and engineering in the dream. According to

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Speaker 1: Cornell's I tie Cohen, who is an associate professor of

409
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Speaker 1: physics and graduate student Jesse Silberg, the dream is to

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Speaker 1: have atomic scale machines programmed based unfolding patterns that could

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Speaker 1: snap into place and perform mechanical functions, kind of like

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Speaker 1: the Transformers where robots fuld themselves up but then the

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Speaker 1: unfurl into these locked sort of human forms. In this

414
00:24:25,560 --> 00:24:29,320
Speaker 1: dream has been kind of realized right now. Yes, the

415
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Speaker 1: dream of essentially an oregonmy robot, which this idea really

416
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Speaker 1: takes me back because when I was in junior high

417
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Speaker 1: I wrote a short story that involved in oregonmy robot. Now,

418
00:24:42,440 --> 00:24:44,960
Speaker 1: it was very much informed by like there was. The

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00:24:45,000 --> 00:24:51,040
Speaker 1: story was probably like me having watched Terminator, having watched

420
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Speaker 1: Blade Runner, and then a little bit too of having

421
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Speaker 1: caught Demon Seed on TBS or something. I don't know

422
00:24:58,440 --> 00:25:00,200
Speaker 1: if you remember this, but it was the ninete the

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00:25:00,280 --> 00:25:02,840
Speaker 1: seven sci fi horror film based on a Dean Koont's novel,

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Speaker 1: and in it there's essentially it's about a robot that

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Speaker 1: wants to get a lady pregnant. So it's a little

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00:25:08,960 --> 00:25:12,159
Speaker 1: don't they all, Yeah, yeah, So it's a little little seedy,

427
00:25:12,200 --> 00:25:17,560
Speaker 1: little exploitive. But the robot uses these robotic I mean,

428
00:25:17,600 --> 00:25:21,119
Speaker 1: the computer uses these robotic pseudopods, which in the movie

429
00:25:21,119 --> 00:25:23,920
Speaker 1: at least take on the form of these metallic folding

430
00:25:23,960 --> 00:25:29,000
Speaker 1: geometric constructions. They're not quite origami, but they called to

431
00:25:29,119 --> 00:25:31,960
Speaker 1: mind oorgamy. So I was thinking about, what have you

432
00:25:32,000 --> 00:25:35,680
Speaker 1: had like this, this kind of metal oregamy creature that's

433
00:25:35,760 --> 00:25:38,320
Speaker 1: essentially a flat sheet, but it can confold itself into

434
00:25:38,359 --> 00:25:41,639
Speaker 1: all the possible forms of a of a of a

435
00:25:41,640 --> 00:25:44,440
Speaker 1: sheet of paper, that it could essentially become an oragamy

436
00:25:44,520 --> 00:25:47,040
Speaker 1: spider or a crane and run around and and you know,

437
00:25:47,119 --> 00:25:51,639
Speaker 1: probably stab people with the sharp ends. But in a sense,

438
00:25:51,680 --> 00:25:54,280
Speaker 1: that's kind of what researchers have been working on, not

439
00:25:54,320 --> 00:25:56,879
Speaker 1: so much the stabbing nous and certainly not the the

440
00:25:56,920 --> 00:26:01,439
Speaker 1: impregnating part. But yeah, no stabbing, no impregnant. But Samuel Felton,

441
00:26:01,520 --> 00:26:04,200
Speaker 1: I feel that's graduate student at Harvard may have hacked

442
00:26:04,200 --> 00:26:08,600
Speaker 1: into your brain a bit. Yeah. Two thousand fourteen, Uh,

443
00:26:08,680 --> 00:26:12,040
Speaker 1: team at a m T and Harvard University, which incidentally

444
00:26:12,760 --> 00:26:16,040
Speaker 1: does involve Eric Domain a little bit um the the

445
00:26:16,080 --> 00:26:20,080
Speaker 1: oregamy expert that we mentioned earlier. They've been working on

446
00:26:20,160 --> 00:26:24,240
Speaker 1: Oregonmy robots, essentially robots that fold themselves into arbitrary shapes,

447
00:26:24,280 --> 00:26:26,679
Speaker 1: and in two thousand fourteen they succeeded in producing a

448
00:26:26,800 --> 00:26:30,840
Speaker 1: robot made entirely from parts produced by laser cutting, that

449
00:26:30,960 --> 00:26:33,720
Speaker 1: folds itself up and crawls away as soon as batteries

450
00:26:33,720 --> 00:26:36,480
Speaker 1: are attached to it. This is this thing which looks

451
00:26:36,560 --> 00:26:39,320
Speaker 1: kind of like a kind of like an Oregonmy spider,

452
00:26:39,400 --> 00:26:42,159
Speaker 1: but very much like a robot. Um. You look at

453
00:26:42,200 --> 00:26:44,760
Speaker 1: and you definitely realize that it's a little robotic construction,

454
00:26:45,040 --> 00:26:48,119
Speaker 1: But essentially it's made of five layers of material. The

455
00:26:48,160 --> 00:26:51,960
Speaker 1: middle layer is copper etched into a network of electrical leads,

456
00:26:52,359 --> 00:26:55,560
Speaker 1: and then that sandwich between two between two structural layers

457
00:26:55,600 --> 00:26:58,119
Speaker 1: of paper, and the outer layers are composed of a

458
00:26:58,240 --> 00:27:03,080
Speaker 1: shape memory polymer that folds when heated. So after the

459
00:27:03,160 --> 00:27:06,880
Speaker 1: laser cut materials are layered together, a microprocessor and one

460
00:27:07,000 --> 00:27:09,520
Speaker 1: or more small motors are attached to the top surface.

461
00:27:09,720 --> 00:27:12,040
Speaker 1: And at least in this prototype that they have, that

462
00:27:12,119 --> 00:27:16,199
Speaker 1: attachment is done manually, but it could be performed by

463
00:27:16,240 --> 00:27:20,000
Speaker 1: a robotic system in the future. So essentially what we're

464
00:27:20,000 --> 00:27:22,679
Speaker 1: talking about here again is not on Oregony, that monster

465
00:27:22,720 --> 00:27:24,600
Speaker 1: that runs around in stats people, but it gets more

466
00:27:24,600 --> 00:27:27,639
Speaker 1: in line with that idea of a manufacturing technique of

467
00:27:27,720 --> 00:27:30,719
Speaker 1: a shape that emerges from a packed form. So instead

468
00:27:30,720 --> 00:27:34,400
Speaker 1: of it being merely a suitcase that opens and unpacks itself,

469
00:27:34,440 --> 00:27:38,879
Speaker 1: it could be a cube that unpacks itself. Um, a

470
00:27:39,000 --> 00:27:43,080
Speaker 1: structure that unpacks itself for use in space or on

471
00:27:43,119 --> 00:27:45,840
Speaker 1: another planet, or drug delivery, which we'll talk about in

472
00:27:45,840 --> 00:27:49,880
Speaker 1: a second. Um. But yeah, that that's a self folding robot.

473
00:27:50,000 --> 00:27:52,880
Speaker 1: Took about two hours to make the prototype, and we're

474
00:27:52,880 --> 00:27:55,920
Speaker 1: talking about a hundred bucks, so pretty simple and cheap,

475
00:27:56,680 --> 00:27:58,680
Speaker 1: And according to kind of Chang, who is running through

476
00:27:58,680 --> 00:28:01,000
Speaker 1: New York Times, the hope is this will allow computer

477
00:28:01,119 --> 00:28:03,440
Speaker 1: software to figure out the cuts and folds needed to

478
00:28:03,480 --> 00:28:06,840
Speaker 1: create complex robots capable of doing just about anything, and

479
00:28:07,320 --> 00:28:10,240
Speaker 1: Fountain is now adapting the technique on a smaller scale

480
00:28:10,320 --> 00:28:14,359
Speaker 1: to pursue the creation of insect robots. So conceivably we

481
00:28:14,400 --> 00:28:18,520
Speaker 1: could look to a future in which a spaceship using

482
00:28:18,520 --> 00:28:24,920
Speaker 1: origami solar sales, goregamy solar panels, and various oregamy inspired parts,

483
00:28:25,280 --> 00:28:29,280
Speaker 1: would sail to a distant planet, say Mars, and then

484
00:28:29,359 --> 00:28:32,520
Speaker 1: it would send a package down to the surface, perhaps

485
00:28:32,600 --> 00:28:36,639
Speaker 1: using a parachute type device that is folded like Oregonmy,

486
00:28:36,640 --> 00:28:39,360
Speaker 1: and then once it once it hits the surface, it

487
00:28:39,440 --> 00:28:46,680
Speaker 1: will unpack these structures using Oregonmy style um memory materials

488
00:28:46,720 --> 00:28:51,120
Speaker 1: and oregamy inspired robotic insects. Although at this point I

489
00:28:51,160 --> 00:28:56,920
Speaker 1: feel like it might be photons that are Origami packed.

490
00:28:57,640 --> 00:28:59,800
Speaker 1: I feel like quantum physics has to be involved with

491
00:28:59,840 --> 00:29:02,680
Speaker 1: the eventually. What I love about this is that that

492
00:29:02,920 --> 00:29:06,920
Speaker 1: in this scenario, Oregonmy kind of becomes the form that

493
00:29:07,000 --> 00:29:10,880
Speaker 1: humanity takes and human culture takes when it moves beyond Earth,

494
00:29:10,960 --> 00:29:14,040
Speaker 1: like it kind of becomes the idealized version of who

495
00:29:14,080 --> 00:29:16,760
Speaker 1: and what we are. Maybe I'm stretching a bit there,

496
00:29:16,800 --> 00:29:19,960
Speaker 1: but probably and you have an oregomy soul an action

497
00:29:20,000 --> 00:29:23,160
Speaker 1: induced one. It's lovely. Yes, it's very it's very thin,

498
00:29:23,480 --> 00:29:25,840
Speaker 1: but if folded enough, it seems to take on a

499
00:29:25,920 --> 00:29:29,160
Speaker 1: substant form. Yes, it's just springs into action. Um. Now,

500
00:29:29,200 --> 00:29:32,560
Speaker 1: another way of using oregamy is with drug delivery. As

501
00:29:32,640 --> 00:29:35,600
Speaker 1: we said, so if you look at DNA, it's inherently

502
00:29:35,680 --> 00:29:39,800
Speaker 1: a programmable molecule. In most people know that adenine binds

503
00:29:39,840 --> 00:29:44,320
Speaker 1: to finding and that side design binds to guanin. So

504
00:29:44,400 --> 00:29:46,840
Speaker 1: you have your A, your T, you have your C in,

505
00:29:46,920 --> 00:29:49,920
Speaker 1: your G right, your DNA pattern and the simple pattern

506
00:29:50,000 --> 00:29:54,240
Speaker 1: together with an ability to build custom DNA strands from

507
00:29:54,280 --> 00:29:58,360
Speaker 1: scratch that lets scientists design these A, C, T, G

508
00:29:58,520 --> 00:30:03,640
Speaker 1: sequences that create very specific patterns of inter and intra

509
00:30:03,880 --> 00:30:07,440
Speaker 1: strand binding. So why is this important to origamy? It

510
00:30:07,480 --> 00:30:12,280
Speaker 1: means that researchers can design DNA molecules which fold into

511
00:30:12,360 --> 00:30:17,280
Speaker 1: incredibly complex three dimensional shapes. And this is how the

512
00:30:17,400 --> 00:30:21,719
Speaker 1: term oregamy began to become associated with the industry, especially

513
00:30:21,720 --> 00:30:26,080
Speaker 1: if you look at eric domains work with proteins. Yeah,

514
00:30:26,120 --> 00:30:29,920
Speaker 1: because essentially this this is how nanotechnology works. It's not

515
00:30:30,040 --> 00:30:34,360
Speaker 1: about taking a human scale robot and shrinking it down.

516
00:30:34,480 --> 00:30:37,080
Speaker 1: It's about figuring out how things work at the at

517
00:30:37,080 --> 00:30:40,520
Speaker 1: the molecular level. And it's easy to to think about

518
00:30:40,960 --> 00:30:43,160
Speaker 1: drugs and medications and think of it in a chemical

519
00:30:43,200 --> 00:30:45,560
Speaker 1: sense and think of that that is distinct from physical

520
00:30:46,200 --> 00:30:50,360
Speaker 1: reality and physical properties. But but but clearly, when we're

521
00:30:50,360 --> 00:30:54,400
Speaker 1: talking about proteins interactingly, this is a physical interaction. And uh,

522
00:30:54,440 --> 00:30:57,080
Speaker 1: and so we're we're looking even further into the future

523
00:30:57,400 --> 00:31:01,120
Speaker 1: to the possibility of molecular scale sheens that can snap

524
00:31:01,160 --> 00:31:04,760
Speaker 1: into place and perform mechanical tasks inside the body outside

525
00:31:04,760 --> 00:31:08,640
Speaker 1: of the body. Again, the future, when you is very

526
00:31:09,200 --> 00:31:14,080
Speaker 1: uh organic, if you will an organic future, I like, Yeah.

527
00:31:14,080 --> 00:31:16,040
Speaker 1: The more you more you look at the applications of

528
00:31:16,080 --> 00:31:19,200
Speaker 1: oregony and where, um, where it's being used, and where

529
00:31:19,200 --> 00:31:22,080
Speaker 1: it has potential for use, Uh, it gets more and

530
00:31:22,120 --> 00:31:24,080
Speaker 1: more fascinating. If you want to try to imagine that.

531
00:31:24,120 --> 00:31:26,680
Speaker 1: Here's an example. Let's you have a tube shaped piece

532
00:31:26,720 --> 00:31:30,320
Speaker 1: of DNA or a gamy and that could deliver payloads

533
00:31:30,360 --> 00:31:33,760
Speaker 1: of drugs to cancer cells. So the tube could open

534
00:31:33,840 --> 00:31:37,160
Speaker 1: like a clam, but it's clasped shut by two DNA

535
00:31:37,240 --> 00:31:41,320
Speaker 1: strands called aptamers, and the aptomers are designed to recognize

536
00:31:41,400 --> 00:31:44,760
Speaker 1: molecules on the surface of cancer cells and when they do,

537
00:31:44,960 --> 00:31:48,040
Speaker 1: they spring apart and they open the tube and they

538
00:31:48,080 --> 00:31:50,920
Speaker 1: release the drugs from within. So again it's a more

539
00:31:51,040 --> 00:31:54,920
Speaker 1: effective drug delivery system. Yeah, you've essentially made a little

540
00:31:54,960 --> 00:31:58,280
Speaker 1: box out of out of these these proteins, and then

541
00:31:58,320 --> 00:32:01,240
Speaker 1: you have the lid to the box is hinged on

542
00:32:01,400 --> 00:32:04,760
Speaker 1: a on another protein. Again, it's like it's building the robot,

543
00:32:04,800 --> 00:32:07,680
Speaker 1: building the machine, building the structure out of the materials

544
00:32:07,680 --> 00:32:12,719
Speaker 1: available at that level that can recognize other molecules. It's amazing. Alright.

545
00:32:12,800 --> 00:32:18,520
Speaker 1: So you're probably wondering what's the largest Oregonami sculpture in

546
00:32:18,560 --> 00:32:20,560
Speaker 1: the world, because you know, we think about this more

547
00:32:20,600 --> 00:32:23,360
Speaker 1: in the tiny scale. Yeah, I mean, because that's that's

548
00:32:23,360 --> 00:32:25,520
Speaker 1: where you get excited, right, look at all the detail

549
00:32:25,600 --> 00:32:29,120
Speaker 1: and that small little paper creature. And yet there are

550
00:32:29,240 --> 00:32:32,200
Speaker 1: some some very large pieces. And the largest so far

551
00:32:32,880 --> 00:32:36,640
Speaker 1: is a life size white elephant that was created by

552
00:32:37,240 --> 00:32:41,560
Speaker 1: oregonmy artist Cypho Mabona. And this is following a successful

553
00:32:41,920 --> 00:32:46,120
Speaker 1: campaign on Indigo Go which raised nearly twenty six thousand

554
00:32:46,200 --> 00:32:48,840
Speaker 1: dollars so that he could he could bring this to life.

555
00:32:48,840 --> 00:32:51,760
Speaker 1: It stands ten feet tall and it took a team

556
00:32:51,760 --> 00:32:54,640
Speaker 1: of nearly a dozen people over four weeks to fold

557
00:32:54,720 --> 00:32:58,560
Speaker 1: it into life. Yeah, a single two hundred and twenty

558
00:32:58,720 --> 00:33:03,840
Speaker 1: pounds square of handmade paper. And he made a thirty

559
00:33:03,880 --> 00:33:06,720
Speaker 1: seven second time lapse video of the project, and he says,

560
00:33:06,920 --> 00:33:09,000
Speaker 1: a lot of people said, maybe you shouldn't show it

561
00:33:09,000 --> 00:33:11,120
Speaker 1: because it takes away from the magical aspects of it.

562
00:33:11,920 --> 00:33:13,880
Speaker 1: And he says, it's you know, it's one square of

563
00:33:13,880 --> 00:33:16,160
Speaker 1: paper and now it's this, how's it possible? But the

564
00:33:16,200 --> 00:33:20,680
Speaker 1: most important idea of the transformation is that anything is possible,

565
00:33:20,680 --> 00:33:22,680
Speaker 1: and I wanted people to be able to witness that.

566
00:33:23,440 --> 00:33:25,720
Speaker 1: So again I think it's it's really has that sort

567
00:33:25,720 --> 00:33:28,840
Speaker 1: of elegant idea of the possibilities of this one thing

568
00:33:29,320 --> 00:33:33,600
Speaker 1: becoming an entirely different thing just with your imagination and

569
00:33:33,680 --> 00:33:36,040
Speaker 1: just with the sort of physical properties of the world

570
00:33:36,520 --> 00:33:39,280
Speaker 1: at your disposal, and knowing that there are definite steps

571
00:33:39,320 --> 00:33:41,400
Speaker 1: to follow to get there. You know, in a way,

572
00:33:41,480 --> 00:33:44,440
Speaker 1: it's a perfect symbol for for science itself. And uh,

573
00:33:44,520 --> 00:33:47,240
Speaker 1: you know, when when science works and when science is

574
00:33:47,360 --> 00:33:51,600
Speaker 1: as accurately described a process. Now, the tiniest example we

575
00:33:51,600 --> 00:33:55,040
Speaker 1: could find comes by way of Christian L. Brant of Denmark,

576
00:33:55,400 --> 00:33:59,240
Speaker 1: who folded the world's smallest jumping or a gami frog.

577
00:33:59,480 --> 00:34:03,240
Speaker 1: It measures only point one inch that's two point seven

578
00:34:03,280 --> 00:34:08,800
Speaker 1: millimeters long, but it can jump four inches or millimeters.

579
00:34:08,840 --> 00:34:13,160
Speaker 1: And Elbernt used tweezers scalpel in a pocket lens to

580
00:34:13,200 --> 00:34:16,920
Speaker 1: create this, this tiny little amphibian. But just in case

581
00:34:17,920 --> 00:34:20,239
Speaker 1: you're out there and you think this would be really

582
00:34:20,239 --> 00:34:26,680
Speaker 1: awesome to do, but you have pulpus lacerata phobia, you

583
00:34:26,719 --> 00:34:28,560
Speaker 1: should stay with from this. That is a fear of

584
00:34:28,760 --> 00:34:31,840
Speaker 1: org it's a fear of paper cuts. Oh yeah, that

585
00:34:31,880 --> 00:34:34,919
Speaker 1: would be an inherent risk, wasn't it. It would maybe

586
00:34:35,160 --> 00:34:39,080
Speaker 1: doing that wet folding technique though maybe that that makes

587
00:34:39,120 --> 00:34:41,880
Speaker 1: things a little less sharp. But yeah, there you go

588
00:34:42,200 --> 00:34:45,960
Speaker 1: for anybody who has pulpis lacerata. That was just it

589
00:34:46,040 --> 00:34:48,960
Speaker 1: just occurred to me. Another example of what is essentially

590
00:34:49,000 --> 00:34:52,160
Speaker 1: oregony that a lot of people probably have experienced with

591
00:34:52,320 --> 00:34:55,440
Speaker 1: is what do you call that thing that particularly like

592
00:34:55,800 --> 00:34:58,480
Speaker 1: second graders will do. Will you make the little four

593
00:34:58,520 --> 00:35:02,360
Speaker 1: away foldy thing? It has like answers on the inside

594
00:35:02,360 --> 00:35:03,640
Speaker 1: and you kind of open it one way and then

595
00:35:03,640 --> 00:35:07,000
Speaker 1: it opens the other. Do you like me? Yes? Maybe no,

596
00:35:07,360 --> 00:35:09,000
Speaker 1: I have to think about it. It's like the mouth

597
00:35:09,040 --> 00:35:12,239
Speaker 1: of prophecy for for second grade. I do not I

598
00:35:12,280 --> 00:35:14,640
Speaker 1: don't know what it's called, but I know exactly what

599
00:35:14,640 --> 00:35:16,759
Speaker 1: you're talking about in a bit that listeners out there

600
00:35:16,920 --> 00:35:21,800
Speaker 1: have had that experience. Yeah, because that's a definite oregonmic creation.

601
00:35:21,800 --> 00:35:25,680
Speaker 1: I mean, a paper airplane is essentially a functional piece

602
00:35:25,680 --> 00:35:28,839
Speaker 1: of oregonmy. So I love that that you can take

603
00:35:28,880 --> 00:35:31,520
Speaker 1: this what is a sort of like highly charged question

604
00:35:31,560 --> 00:35:34,399
Speaker 1: at that age, Let's say nine year old, right, and

605
00:35:34,600 --> 00:35:37,239
Speaker 1: you have a crush on someone and you create this

606
00:35:37,600 --> 00:35:42,040
Speaker 1: oregamy ish moving sculpture to try to express your feelings.

607
00:35:42,200 --> 00:35:44,600
Speaker 1: I know, it's like it's it's like oregonmy is this

608
00:35:44,719 --> 00:35:48,560
Speaker 1: powerful thing in human culture that we just totally take

609
00:35:48,640 --> 00:35:52,560
Speaker 1: for granted, despite the fact that we we essentially pray

610
00:35:52,640 --> 00:35:56,200
Speaker 1: to it when we're young children and and then as

611
00:35:56,239 --> 00:35:58,879
Speaker 1: adults turned to it for answers to some of our

612
00:35:58,880 --> 00:36:02,640
Speaker 1: most challenging engineering problems. Indeed, um, I want to remind

613
00:36:02,680 --> 00:36:05,000
Speaker 1: everybody we've got the article on how stuff work, how

614
00:36:05,040 --> 00:36:09,640
Speaker 1: origami works, Yes, and the documentary is between the folds. Yes.

615
00:36:09,719 --> 00:36:11,120
Speaker 1: And if you go to stuff to Blow your Mind

616
00:36:11,160 --> 00:36:14,160
Speaker 1: dot com and you're streaming this sub podcast episode off

617
00:36:14,200 --> 00:36:16,719
Speaker 1: of our website, I will have links to those and

618
00:36:16,760 --> 00:36:19,520
Speaker 1: other related sources on the page there with you, so

619
00:36:19,640 --> 00:36:22,040
Speaker 1: you you don't have to go go anywhere while listening

620
00:36:22,080 --> 00:36:25,560
Speaker 1: to it. In fact, that site is chuck full of stuff, yes,

621
00:36:25,680 --> 00:36:28,759
Speaker 1: chock full of all the podcast episodes way back to

622
00:36:28,840 --> 00:36:33,600
Speaker 1: the beginning, uh the ancient days of stuff Color Yourline podcasting.

623
00:36:33,760 --> 00:36:36,120
Speaker 1: You'll find all of our videos on the site that

624
00:36:36,160 --> 00:36:37,759
Speaker 1: you can check out the different things we're doing in

625
00:36:37,760 --> 00:36:39,920
Speaker 1: the video medium, as well as well as all of

626
00:36:39,960 --> 00:36:42,520
Speaker 1: our blog posts going back through the years. And if

627
00:36:42,520 --> 00:36:45,719
Speaker 1: you've got some oregamy tinged thoughts to share with us, yes,

628
00:36:45,880 --> 00:36:48,279
Speaker 1: maybe no, you have to think about it. You can

629
00:36:48,320 --> 00:36:51,640
Speaker 1: send those two. Blow the mind at how stuff works

630
00:36:51,680 --> 00:36:59,120
Speaker 1: dot com for more on this and thousands of other topics,

631
00:36:59,160 --> 00:37:06,600
Speaker 1: because it how stuff works dot com