Nesbitt Room

Wrinkles and Crumples and Origami, oh my!

Ian Tobasco

Abstract for 7 December

Crumple a sheet of paper and a seemingly unpredictable network of creases and folds appears. This talk will discuss the mathematical analysis of such “crumpling patterns”, their more orderly cousin origami, as well as other diffuse versions of crumpling known as “wrinkling patterns”. Along the way, we’ll learn the basics of elasticity theory, and see how tools from geometry, analysis, and mechanics can be used to predict and categorize the zoo of patterns exhibited by thin elastic sheets.

CREATE A MIURAORI FOLD PATTERNJesse L Silverberg, Arthur A Evans, Lauren McLeod,Ryan C Hayward, Thomas Hull, Chris D Santangelo and Itai Cohen1 Cut out along black line2 Crease all red lines so that they form ‘mountains’ that point up off page3 Crease all blue lines so they form ‘valleys’ that point down the page4 Collapse all creases simultaneously so the Miura-ori folds flat5 Make lattice defects by pushing vertices through themselves, ‘popping’them into a new positionSee an online video tutorial at tinyurl.com/mcokzag

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