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olding technology didn’t catch on right away in the science,
Fmathematics, and engineering communities. After all, origami
is an art form often linked with the paper cranes many people learn
how to make as a kid. It was hard to take it seriously at first. But
origami gradually became more popular as mathematicians, scientists,
and engineers saw how its interesting patterns could create valuable
technological designs. Folding and origami can solve physics problems
that puzzle even the best engineers. In a surprising historical twist,
something as ancient as the art of origami has evolved to inspire some
of the most cutting‑edge technological designs.

ORIGAMI’S ORIGINS
Origami has a long tradition in Japan, where artists and everyday
people have practiced and refined its patterns for centuries. The name
comes from the Japanese words for “fold” (ori) and “paper” (gami).
Paper folding began in Japan in the seventh century, when paper was
a valuable and rare material. This paper was made from plant and
tree pulp flattened into molds and was first brought to the country by
Chinese Buddhist monks. At first, people used paper folding only for
religious ceremonial purposes. This early “origami” included the shide
pattern, which uses both folding and cutting to make the zigzagging
streamers that hang at Shinto shrines. Shinto is the national religion
of Japan, and different forms of folded paper are significant within its
shrines. Folded‑paper ornaments called noshi were another early form.
It became the custom to place a piece of dried seafood inside the noshi
and attach it onto a wedding gift. These early forms of origami had no
written instructions: people taught one another how to make them.
By the seventeenth century, paper folding had moved from the
shrines to the public and became a form of recreation. With the
development of a papermaking industry, paper could be mass‑produced
and was more easily available and cheaper to buy. Japanese people began
regarding paper folding as an art form. It was no longer purely a sacred

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