Robert J. Lang's Stunning Origami on "Mathematical Imagery"

September 25, 2007

Providence, RI: Folding a paper airplane? No problem. How about folding a fiddler crab, complete with oversized claw, from one piece of paper? Now THAT'S a problem and it's one solved by Robert J. Lang with a combination of mathematics and art.

Six of Robert J. Lang's stunning and intricate origami models, including the crab, are now on the American Mathematical Society's Mathematical Imagery" site. Lang, one of the world's leading masters of origami, blends art and mathematics, East and West, to create the works.

While origami is a centuries-old art form, mathematics applied to origami helps solve today's problems arising in engineering, industrial design, and technology. It has applications from consumer products (collapsible air bags and blood vessel stents, for instance) to the space program (solar panels on satellites, robotic arms, and large telescopes that need to be transported). Lang's works, which now number nearly 500 and some of which use hundreds of folds, have been shown in galleries and at exhibitions worldwide. His crease patterns are based on advanced mathematics but his artistry plays an equal role in the designs.

Lang's detailed and realistic works on "Mathematical Imagery"--an owl, a moose, a tree frog, a fiddler crab, an elephant, and a dinosaur skeleton--give viewers an appreciation of the challenges and beautiful results of paper folding.

Mathematical Imagery," a program of the American Mathematical Society, promotes awareness of mathematicians and artists whose mathematically-inspired and mathematically-generated images can also be sent as e-postcards.

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Founded in 1888 to further mathematical research and scholarship, the 30,000-member American Mathematical Society fulfills its mission through programs and services that promote mathematical research and its uses, strengthen mathematical education, and foster awareness and appreciation of mathematics and its connections to other disciplines and to everyday life.