Art and science bond in WestConn exhibition
Renowned origami mathematician to speak
DANBURY, CONN. — 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.
Lang will lecture and display several of his intricate creations in “From Flapping Birds to Space Telescopes: The Modern Science of Origami” at 7 p.m. 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 pit stop along Lang’s exhibit tour, “Masters of Origami.” He recently was on CNN and lectured about his work at Stanford University in California this week.
Rona Gurkewitz, chairperson of WCSU’s computer science department, is also an origamist and has known Lang for 25 years. She invited Lang to WestConn after hearing he was going to be in the area.
“Dr. Lang is trained as a physicist with a Ph.D. from the California Institute of Technology and is a serious scientist,” said Gurkewitz. “He has 47 patents and is editor-in-chief of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Journal of Quantum Electronics.”
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 10 years, he has brought origami from being an art to a science and has really bridged the gap between the two fields,” Gurkewitz said. “For a while, he had two careers going at once. Now, he does more origami but keeps his finger in the laser physics outlet.”
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, Lang designed and wrote two software programs that help him analyze the design’s core mathematics and visualize the precise angle of each fold. Lang 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 Gurkewitz. “He is the wave of the future.”
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. Customers may purchase an existing piece or commission a design of their own. More information can be found at Lang’s Web site: www.langorigami.com.
For more information, call Gurkewitz at (203) 837-9354 or the WCSU Office of University Relations at (203) 837-8486.
