Origami

History

• The Japanese word "Origami" itself is a

compound of two smaller Japanese words:
"ori" (root verb "oru"), meaning to fold, and
"kami", meaning paper
• known by a variety of names, including
"orikata", "orisue", "orimono", "tatamigami"
and others
• the word "origami" was a direct translation of
the German word "Papierfalten", brought into
Japan with the Kindergarten Movement
around 1880
 Timeline

• Japanese origami began sometime after Buddhist monks carried paper to

Japan during the 6th century.
• The first Japanese origami dates from this period and was used for
religious ceremonial purposes only, due to the high price of paper.
• In 1797 the first known origami book was published in Japan: Senbazuru
orikata.
• The earliest evidence of paperfolding in Europe is a picture of a small
paper boat in the 1498 French edition of Johannes de Sacrobosco's
Tractatus de Sphaera Mundi.
• The modern growth of interest in origami dates to the design in 1954 by
Akira Yoshizawa of a notation to indicate how to fold origami models.
• The first known origami social group was founded in Zaragoza, Spain,
during the 1940s.
 Origami is both art and math, as it’s a pattern of creases
First law: two-colorability. You can color any crease pattern with just two colors without ever having the
same color meeting.”
Second law: “The directions of the folds at any vertex —the number of mountain folds, the number of valley
folds — always differs by two.”
Maekawa’s Theorem
Mountain fold (or mountain crease) - a fold where the two ends of paper go down and the fold is pointed upwards. It looks like a mountain.
Valley fold (or valley crease) - is the opposite. The fold is at the bottom, and the ends of paper are facing upwards, imitating a valley.
Vertex - is where the mountain and valley folds meet.
Third law: No matter how many times you try to stack folds and sheets, a sheet can never
penetrate a fold.
Fourth law: Every other angle around the vertices comes out to 180 degrees.

 If you subtract the mountain folds from the valley folds (or vice versa), the absolute difference would be two.
(Remember to leave out negative numbers.)
For example, 5 mountain creases and 3 valley creases would be accurate, since 5-3=2.
However, 6 mountain creases and 2 valley creases wouldn’t work because 6-2=4.
 This rule is essential when learning how to read and fold crease patterns, as it can save you a lot of time trying to fold 6
mountain creases and 5 valley creases since that’s an impossible feat.
Two-colorability Mountain-Valley Counting
(First Law) (Second Law)
EXAMPLES