00:00:03
engineers are turning to origami for
00:00:05
inspiration for all types of
00:00:07
applications from medical devices to
00:00:10
space applications and even stopping
00:00:13
bullets
00:00:14
but why is it that this ancient art of
00:00:17
paper folding is so useful for modern
00:00:19
engineering
00:00:21
origami literally folding paper dates
00:00:24
back at least 400 years in japan
00:00:27
but the number of designs was limited
00:00:29
there were only a handful of patterns
00:00:32
maybe 100 200 total in japan
00:00:37
nowadays there are tens of thousands
00:00:40
that have been documented and most of
00:00:42
that change happened in the 20th century
00:00:45
there were a handful of japanese origami
00:00:48
masters and by far the most successful
00:00:51
of them was a man named akira yoshizawa
00:00:54
who
00:00:55
created thousands of new designs wrote
00:00:58
many many books of his works
00:01:00
and his work inspired a worldwide
00:01:03
renaissance of origami creativity well i
00:01:07
wanted to fold a cactus
00:01:09
the first thing one needed to do
00:01:11
is figure out how do i get spines on a
00:01:14
cactus so you can imagine if i can make
00:01:16
two spines here
00:01:18
i could do the same thing to make a
00:01:20
whole row
00:01:21
then i can go back do a complete design
00:01:23
that's what this is
00:01:26
[Laughter]
00:01:28
and
00:01:30
and this is actually the cactus and the
00:01:32
pot
00:01:33
are from a single sheet of paper
00:01:35
the paper's green on one side red on the
00:01:38
other that whole thing is this thing so
00:01:40
this is
00:01:41
this is
00:01:42
one uncut square of paper
00:01:44
how big was that piece of paper and this
00:01:46
is about a one meter square
00:01:49
so
00:01:50
there is a huge amount of size reduction
00:01:52
to go from a meter down to here but you
00:01:55
need that to get all of the spines and
00:01:58
how long did that take to make
00:02:00
that
00:02:01
took about seven years
00:02:04
from start to finish
00:02:05
wow
00:02:06
why is origami this
00:02:08
thing that was created for aesthetics
00:02:10
mainly why is it so useful i guess is
00:02:13
the question for for like you know
00:02:15
structural things that were for
00:02:16
mechanical engineering or for space
00:02:18
applications like why does it find
00:02:20
itself in so many of these applications
00:02:22
why is it so useful
00:02:25
well the thing that makes origami
00:02:28
useful
00:02:29
is it is a way
00:02:31
of transforming a flat sheet
00:02:33
into some other shape with relatively
00:02:36
little processing
00:02:38
this is a folded pattern
00:02:40
it's called a triangulated cylinder it
00:02:42
is by stable meaning it's stable in two
00:02:45
positions this is one and then if i give
00:02:47
it a twist
00:02:49
this is the other this really has a
00:02:51
bunch of bi-stable mechanisms in it
00:02:53
because i can
00:02:55
you can see how it sort of pops into
00:02:57
place
00:02:59
but if you combine the two mechanisms
00:03:02
going in different directions then you
00:03:04
get the sort of magical color change
00:03:06
effect yeah that's impressive so you
00:03:08
look at this and you say okay that is a
00:03:10
cute paper toy
00:03:12
is it anything more than that and the
00:03:14
answer is yes
00:03:15
does that turn into that
00:03:18
turns into that yep we're working with a
00:03:20
company called two against surgical that
00:03:22
does the da vinci surgical robot
00:03:25
where they wanted to be able to insert a
00:03:28
flexible catheter with uh with the robot
00:03:31
but the flexible catheters tend to
00:03:33
buckle and stuff so we had
00:03:35
developed these
00:03:37
origami bellows
00:03:38
that if you look down there there's uh
00:03:41
a hole that no matter how far we move
00:03:44
this that that stays the same size
00:03:48
on the inside and what that means is we
00:03:50
can put the catheter in there
00:03:53
and as the catheter moves and it's
00:03:55
getting inserted into the body it still
00:03:57
has supports along the way
00:03:59
or for another example
00:04:01
here i have a foldable
00:04:04
bulletproof
00:04:06
collapsible wall
00:04:10
it's based on the yoshimura crease
00:04:12
pattern meanings might make this out of
00:04:15
a bulletproof material can be very
00:04:16
compact being a police officer's car
00:04:19
and deploy out and be bulletproof
00:04:22
but would it actually work
00:04:24
well they've put it to the test
00:04:34
using 12 layers of kevlar it can stop
00:04:37
bullets from a handgun and a new design
00:04:40
featuring interchangeable panels should
00:04:42
be able to stop rifle rounds
00:04:44
those and that vial that is those are
00:04:47
actually
00:04:48
bullets that have been stopped by
00:04:50
origami
00:04:52
an intrinsic benefit of origami is that
00:04:54
the simple act of folding a material can
00:04:57
make it more rigid
00:04:58
i was going to ask you about this
00:05:00
yeah more origami
00:05:04
but i was going to say it's a way of
00:05:05
making the can stronger without actually
00:05:06
like thinner metal right
00:05:09
but for engineering applications the
00:05:11
more common challenge is how to fold
00:05:14
thick rigid materials this is uh
00:05:17
polypropylene okay very rigid there's no
00:05:20
way that i'm going to be able to to fold
00:05:22
that into
00:05:25
this vertex so this is an example it
00:05:28
shows a couple things surrogate folds we
00:05:32
can use to replace the the creases and
00:05:34
then also
00:05:37
that piece of polypropylene folds up and
00:05:39
it also accommodates the thickness
00:05:42
by cutting or scoring materials and
00:05:44
adding hinges as necessary thick rigid
00:05:47
materials can in effect be folded
00:05:51
this is useful for example in deploying
00:05:53
solar panels
00:05:55
this pattern is perhaps the granddaddy
00:05:57
of deployable structures it's called the
00:05:59
miura ori it's been used for solar
00:06:02
arrays in fact it was one of the first
00:06:03
patterns that flew on a space mission
00:06:05
back in 1995
00:06:07
it was called the space flyer mission as
00:06:10
you see here
00:06:11
it all
00:06:12
opens and closes in a single motion and
00:06:14
when it flattens it's it's very thin and
00:06:17
compact it's a fun pattern called the
00:06:19
origami flasher and
00:06:22
you get
00:06:23
this kind of interesting
00:06:26
flasher motion
00:06:27
this has been proposed as a design for
00:06:29
satellite solar arrays increasing
00:06:32
compactness for launch and reliability
00:06:34
in deployment
00:06:36
[Music]
00:06:37
a new area for origami research is in
00:06:40
improving the aerodynamics of freight
00:06:42
locomotives the thing with freight
00:06:44
locomotives is you know they're just
00:06:46
like bricks going down the tracks so
00:06:48
their aerodynamics are horrible ideally
00:06:50
i'd like to have a nose cone on the
00:06:51
front of a freight locomotive to improve
00:06:53
the aerodynamics but you can't because
00:06:56
they're like lego blocks they're hooked
00:06:58
up anywhere along the train you don't
00:07:00
know if it's the first one or the second
00:07:01
one or the third one here's a
00:07:04
scaled prototype showing a pattern that
00:07:07
we demonstrated on a freight locomotive
00:07:09
it folds up to be
00:07:11
very flat
00:07:12
but then deploys out and it turns out
00:07:15
our
00:07:16
computer models and wind tunnel testing
00:07:20
show that this will save this one
00:07:22
company multiple millions of dollars a
00:07:24
year in diesel
00:07:26
[Music]
00:07:33
this is a violinist it was one of my
00:07:36
favorite mechanism designs because
00:07:39
he fiddles if you pull his head
00:07:42
fantastic
00:07:44
functional motions of origami are
00:07:46
inspiring new designs for devices
00:07:48
like compliant mechanisms that can
00:07:50
complete full 360 degree rotations
00:07:53
unlike a traditional mechanisms with you
00:07:56
know bearings or hinges i can hook on a
00:07:58
motor and i can get continuous
00:07:59
revolution
00:08:01
i couldn't do that with a compliant
00:08:03
mechanism but it turns out no one
00:08:05
bothered to tell the paper folders that
00:08:07
and
00:08:09
created
00:08:10
a
00:08:14
uh continuously revolving compliant
00:08:17
mechanism
00:08:18
which is called a kalita cycle
00:08:21
origami motions are also being used in
00:08:24
medical devices these would be
00:08:26
you know the creases in the paper
00:08:28
uh
00:08:29
and we have here now uh forceps
00:08:33
and so what's nice about this is we
00:08:35
could put this at a smaller scale right
00:08:37
on the medical instrument to go into the
00:08:39
body
00:08:40
but then can morph
00:08:42
and become the gripper so it'll be very
00:08:43
small incision but then go in and do
00:08:46
some more complex tasks inside the body
00:08:49
a variant of this mini gripper is now
00:08:51
being used in robotic surgeries
00:08:53
replacing the previous mechanism and
00:08:55
reducing the number of parts by 75
00:08:57
percent
00:08:58
the origami inspired device is smaller
00:09:01
but with a wider range of motion
00:09:04
and functional origami can be
00:09:05
miniaturized even further this is the
00:09:08
world's smallest origami flapping bird
00:09:13
that sounds cool this one was devoted
00:09:16
to developing
00:09:17
techniques to make
00:09:19
microscopic self-folding origami and
00:09:22
what you see here is a microscope photo
00:09:24
of the finished bird
00:09:27
but
00:09:28
what the bird actually looks like
00:09:31
well
00:09:32
i'll need my micro lens you'll probably
00:09:34
need
00:09:35
not just your macro lens you'll need
00:09:36
your microscope
00:09:38
because it's smaller than a grain of
00:09:40
salt so it started out it was a bit less
00:09:43
than a millimeter square
00:09:45
but when it's folded
00:09:48
it's much much smaller wow
00:09:50
now
00:09:51
you might ask yourself
00:09:53
what would anyone ever use
00:09:55
a microscopic flapping bird for and the
00:09:57
answer is well nothing for a flapping
00:10:00
bird
00:10:01
but
00:10:02
there are
00:10:03
medical devices medical applications
00:10:05
implants that are microscopic where you
00:10:08
might want a little machine
00:10:10
this is a nano injector
00:10:13
used in gene therapy to deliver dna to
00:10:15
cells
00:10:16
it's only four micrometers thick
00:10:19
so 400 of them can fit onto a one
00:10:23
centimeter wide computer chip
00:10:26
there's some things down there that kind
00:10:28
of look about star wars to me yes this
00:10:30
art called elliptic infinity
00:10:32
and we wanted to do that in a material
00:10:34
other than paper
00:10:36
you see this
00:10:38
from flat
00:10:40
into that elliptic infinity shape this
00:10:43
is actually a lamp
00:10:45
that's made from a single sheet so it
00:10:47
comes in an envelope like this put its
00:10:49
cable in
00:10:51
fold it
00:10:54
add a clip
00:10:55
now this relies on
00:10:58
a lot of math the curvature of these
00:11:01
lines affects links
00:11:03
the bending and curvature here to here
00:11:05
to here all of these are coupled and
00:11:07
pretty much the only way to design them
00:11:09
and get all the folds to play together
00:11:12
is by following mathematical methods my
00:11:15
professional background is mathematics
00:11:17
and physics i i did laser physics for 15
00:11:20
years as a profession i got my phd in
00:11:23
applied physics
00:11:24
and my kind of my job in many cases was
00:11:28
to figure out how to describe
00:11:30
lasers mathematically and if i could put
00:11:33
my problem in the mathematical language
00:11:36
then i could rely on the tools of
00:11:38
mathematics
00:11:40
to solve those problems and to
00:11:41
accomplish the goals but
00:11:43
i also felt like
00:11:45
origami would be amenable to that same
00:11:48
approach
00:11:49
so i started trying to figure out how to
00:11:52
describe origami using the tools of
00:11:54
mathematics and that worked i'm sort of
00:11:58
fascinated about the math here
00:12:01
like
00:12:02
it's hard for me to conceive of like
00:12:04
what does that math look like the math
00:12:07
comes down
00:12:08
to uh a way of representing a design
00:12:11
called a crease pattern let me grab a
00:12:12
couple of crease patterns okay
00:12:16
so this is an origami crease pattern
00:12:17
it's a plan
00:12:19
for how to fold in this case how to fold
00:12:21
a scorpion a really good way
00:12:23
of designing something like this is to
00:12:26
represent
00:12:28
every feature
00:12:30
claw leg tail
00:12:32
by a circular
00:12:34
region a circular shape
00:12:37
it's not circular folds it's an abstract
00:12:40
it's an abstract concept that you
00:12:42
represent the pattern by a circle but
00:12:44
then you find an arrangement of those
00:12:45
circles on the square
00:12:47
like
00:12:48
packing
00:12:49
balls into a box
00:12:52
so
00:12:53
for the scorpion you've got a long tail
00:12:55
imagine a big circle like a big tin can
00:12:59
and the legs are smaller circles or
00:13:00
circles of different sizes so you've got
00:13:02
different smaller cans and the claws are
00:13:04
a couple more circles and you're going
00:13:06
to put them into a square box
00:13:09
in such a way that they all fit
00:13:13
so you pack the circles
00:13:14
into the box and
00:13:17
the arrangement of those circles
00:13:19
tells you the
00:13:20
the skeleton of the crease pattern and
00:13:22
and from that you can geometrically
00:13:24
construct all the crease patterns you
00:13:26
follow rules
00:13:27
put a line between the center of every
00:13:29
pair of circles
00:13:31
um
00:13:32
and then whenever any two lines meet in
00:13:34
a v
00:13:35
you add a fold halfway in between it's
00:13:37
called a ridge fold
00:13:39
and there's similar more complicated
00:13:41
rules for adding more and more lines but
00:13:44
the thing is it's all step by step it
00:13:46
says it
00:13:47
if you find this geometric pattern that
00:13:49
tells you where to add the next line and
00:13:52
you go through that process until you've
00:13:54
constructed all the lines and when
00:13:56
you're done you can take away the
00:13:58
circles
00:13:59
they were the scaffolding for your
00:14:01
pattern and the pattern of lines that's
00:14:03
left
00:14:04
is the are the folds you need to create
00:14:06
the shape and that's what's shown here
00:14:09
and this was probably the biggest
00:14:11
revolution
00:14:12
in
00:14:13
the world of origami design was if you
00:14:15
followed that systematic process
00:14:18
the fold pattern
00:14:19
would give you
00:14:21
the exact shape that you set out to fold
00:14:23
to begin with the circle packing method
00:14:25
that i described this works for anything
00:14:28
that can be represented
00:14:31
as a stick figure like a scorpion you
00:14:33
could draw this as a stick figure with a
00:14:35
line for the body and tail
00:14:37
lines for each of the legs lines for the
00:14:39
claws and from that stick figure
00:14:41
from any stick figure you can use circle
00:14:43
packing and get a shape that folds it
00:14:46
but suppose the thing you're folding is
00:14:47
not
00:14:48
a stick figure suppose it's something
00:14:50
that's more like a surface
00:14:52
like a sphere
00:14:54
or you know or a cloud or or just in
00:14:57
animal terms a big blobby body like an
00:14:59
elephant
00:15:00
stick figure algorithm is not going to
00:15:02
work but there are other algorithms for
00:15:04
that about 10 years ago a japanese
00:15:07
mathematician named
00:15:09
tomohiro tachi
00:15:11
developed
00:15:12
an algorithm that works for any surface
00:15:16
you give it a triangulated surface as a
00:15:19
mathematical description and he will
00:15:21
give you or his algorithm will give you
00:15:22
the folding pattern that folds into that
00:15:25
surface it's now quite famous and it's
00:15:26
called origamizer
00:15:28
and that is a way you could make
00:15:31
a sheet of anything
00:15:32
and take on any three-dimensional shape
00:15:36
so origami is useful in engineering
00:15:38
because it provides a method of taking a
00:15:40
flat sheet of material and forming it
00:15:42
into virtually any shape by folding
00:15:45
or if the end product is flat origami
00:15:48
offers a way to reduce its dimensions
00:15:50
while still deploying easily
00:15:53
the simple act of folding can increase
00:15:56
rigidity
00:15:57
or origami can take advantage of the
00:16:00
flexibility of materials to create
00:16:01
specific motions
00:16:03
and its principles are scalable enabling
00:16:06
the miniaturization of devices
00:16:09
perhaps most of all origami allows
00:16:11
engineers to piggyback on the bright
00:16:13
ideas people have had over the centuries
00:16:16
while experimenting with folding paper
00:16:18
but translating these ideas into
00:16:20
practical solutions requires a lot of
00:16:23
math modeling and experimentation
00:16:34
hey this episode of veritasium was
00:16:35
supported by viewers like you on patreon
00:16:38
and by audible you know i'm about to
00:16:41
take a trip to australia with the whole
00:16:43
family and on that long flight if
00:16:45
everything is going well i'll be
00:16:46
listening to audible the book i am into
00:16:49
at the moment is narrative economics how
00:16:51
stories go viral and drive major
00:16:53
economic events by robert schiller he is
00:16:56
a nobel prize-winning economist and also
00:16:58
the author of irrational exuberance now
00:17:01
outside of the natural sciences i really
00:17:03
enjoy learning about economics because
00:17:05
it explains so much of what is happening
00:17:07
in the world around us for example this
00:17:09
book starts off by addressing the
00:17:11
phenomenon of bitcoin and schiller's
00:17:13
central thesis is that in addition to
00:17:15
all the traditional factors thought to
00:17:17
affect the economy
00:17:18
it is the narratives that go viral the
00:17:20
stories that take hold that are
00:17:23
instrumental in determining human
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behavior and therefore economic outcomes
00:17:27
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