This time we’re folding. We’re creasing. We’re origami-ing. As Ruby and I make two birds and two planes, I find out a little bit about the world of folding. Even with those small things we made we still got the feeling we were playing with something much bigger. Just by taking a flat sheet of paper and transforming.  

Folding is seen as a negative word, a defeat. Not to the people like Paul Jackson an artist who teaches folding in 80 universities or Robert Lang who gave up engineering degrees to focus on origami solutions to problems of the small and the big.

Or to my guest She’s Dr Rachel Quinlan, Head of the School of Mathematics, Statistics and Applied Mathematics. In her day-job according to the NUIG website, "hercurrent research interests are generally in the area of algebra, especially linear algebra and its interactions with group theory, combinatorics, and field theory" .."group theory, particularly the ordinary and projective representation theory of finite groups." 

But I know that stuff like the back of my hand. So it’s her beautiful origami tessellations that caught my eye.



Along the way you’ll hear about MC Escher, listen to me struggle to describe Euclid, a brief mention of diffraction, topology, stents, airbags and naturally where it always ends: With the structure of the universe.

And sorry about the delay. I know it’s a pain when podcasts are irregular. Work came in that pays the bills and I'm still trying to work out a way to fit this job into all the others. 

LINKS

Between the Folds – Youtube  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFrDN5eYPOQ

More about Vanessa Gould https://www.vanessagould.com/

More about Paul Jackson http://www.origami-artist.com/

More about Robert Lang https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NYKcOFQCeno

More about Dr. Rachel Quinlan  http://www.maths.nuigalway.ie/~rquinlan/ and see her art here https://twitter.com/rkquinlan