Magic Stories

Sorry Dan Harlan: Math Magic Improves on Illusion

 

 

Dr. Erik Demaine

Dr. Erik Demaine is a former magician and from a family of curious magic-lovers.  He currently works as a professor of computer science at MIT and teaches theoretical origami mathematics.  As the title suggests, he teaches the “formal study of what can be done with a folded sheet of paper.”

 

So what?

 

We’ll tell you what.  Dr. Demaine currently proves the existence of shapes long doubted to be possible such as a hyperbolic parabaloid.  This is a shape so unique that even the Microsoft Word spell check function doesn’t know it.  (It suggested the term “hyperbolic pureblood” instead). 

 

Dr. Demaine’s work has been published in peer-review journals for his landmark studies featuring solutions to many “single-cut” problems and “carpenter’s rule” mysteries. 

 

He uses his work in origami to help develop solutions to questions in architecture, robotics and molecular biology.

 

As a young magician, Dr. Demaine and his father discussed one of Houdini’s legendary effects.  Legend has it (hence making it a “legendary” effect) that before Houdini became an escape artist he had a career as a magician and supposedly performed a trick in which he folded a piece of paper, then cut across the creases to “magically” create a five-pointed star.

 

Modern magicians have used the same type of ingenuity to create a star from a single cut. 

 

In 1998, Dr. Demaine and his dad proved to the world that one could effectively make any shape just with folding and a single cut?a star, a swan or a unicorn.  You can even create multiple shapes with a single snip of the scissors?2 stars, 10 stars or 50 stars if you like. One set of shapes that can be produced this way is the letters of the alphabet.

 

One theoretical physicist opined that in theory (hence the reason we are quoting a “theoretical” physicist) you “could produce the complete works of Shakespeare with a single cut.”

 

This story is especially pertinent…

 

 

Dr. Erik Demaine

Dr. Erik Demaine is a former magician and from a family of curious magic-lovers.  He currently works as a professor of computer science at MIT and teaches theoretical origami mathematics.  As the title suggests, he teaches the “formal study of what can be done with a folded sheet of paper.”

 

So what?

 

We’ll tell you what.  Dr. Demaine currently proves the existence of shapes long doubted to be possible such as a hyperbolic parabaloid.  This is a shape so unique that even the Microsoft Word spell check function doesn’t know it.  (It suggested the term “hyperbolic pureblood” instead). 

 

Dr. Demaine’s work has been published in peer-review journals for his landmark studies featuring solutions to many “single-cut” problems and “carpenter’s rule” mysteries. 

 

He uses his work in origami to help develop solutions to questions in architecture, robotics and molecular biology.

 

As a young magician, Dr. Demaine and his father discussed one of Houdini’s legendary effects.  Legend has it (hence making it a “legendary” effect) that before Houdini became an escape artist he had a career as a magician and supposedly performed a trick in which he folded a piece of paper, then cut across the creases to “magically” create a five-pointed star.

 

Modern magicians have used the same type of ingenuity to create a star from a single cut. 

 

In 1998, Dr. Demaine and his dad proved to the world that one could effectively make any shape just with folding and a single cut?a star, a swan or a unicorn.  You can even create multiple shapes with a single snip of the scissors?2 stars, 10 stars or 50 stars if you like. One set of shapes that can be produced this way is the letters of the alphabet.

 

One theoretical physicist opined that in theory (hence the reason we are quoting a “theoretical” physicist) you “could produce the complete works of Shakespeare with a single cut.”

 

This story is especially pertinent to us because we have spent many hours trying to perfect the two bills to one bill transformation detailed in Joshua Jay’s column this month in Magic.  We are convinced there are clever people out there and know for a fact that we are them.

 

Read more in the India Times by clicking here

Read Dr. Demaine’s solution to the Carpenter’s Rule problem here.  This will take you to Dr. Demaine’s website.  Be careful, though.  We lost about an hour just reading all of the neat stuff he has to see.  

Learn how to Cut a Five-Pointed Star with a single cut by clicking here.

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