Folding Martin Gardner

Erik D. Demaine∗ Martin L. Demaine∗

The 22′′ × 28′′ print shown on the next page (“Martin Gardner”, Rives paper, 2012) is part ofthe !AHA! Art exhibition with a magical mathematical twist, presented by the Gathering 4 Gardnerin partnership with the Atlanta–Fulton Public Library System, March 19–31, 2012.

The crease pattern on top of the print folds into two forms of Martin Gardner, as shown on thebottom of the print (not to scale). The rectangular paper sheet folds into the 3D structure of thewords MARTIN GARDNER, as shown in Figure 1, while the grayscale inking in the sheet (top)forms the photograph of Martin Gardner in the background (bottom).

Figure 1: The 3D shape of the folding.

Martin Gardner taught us tolook at everyday things from dif-ferent perspectives, in particularthrough mathematics. We de-cided to look at Martin Gardnerin different ways, using mathe-matics as our toolset.

The crease pattern was de-signed using an algorithm byDemaine, Demaine, and Ku[DDK10a, DDK10b], which de-scribes how to efficiently foldany orthogonal “maze” (includ-ing word outlines like MARTINGARDNER) from a rectangle ofpaper. Red lines fold one wayand blue lines fold the other way.To experiment with other de-signs, try our Maze Folder orread our papers on the web: http://erikdemaine.org/maze/

Given the complexity of the crease pattern, we expect it never to be folded. If you wantto try your hand at it, though, you can download and print the crease pattern from the web:http://erikdemaine.org/prints/MartinGardner/

The photograph of Martin Gardner is from the Archives of the Mathematisches Forschungsin-stitut Oberwolfach, and used with permission.

References[DDK10a] Erik D. Demaine, Martin L. Demaine, and Jason Ku. Folding any orthogonal maze. In Origami5:

Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Origami in Science, Mathematics and Edu-cation (OSME 2010), pages 449–454. A K Peters, Singapore, July 2010.

[DDK10b] Erik D. Demaine, Martin L. Demaine, and Jason Ku. Origami maze puzzle font. In ExchangeBook of the 9th Gathering for Gardner, Atlanta, Georgia, March 2010. To appear.

∗MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, 32 Vassar St., Cambridge, MA 02139, USA,edemaine,[email protected]

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Folding Martin Gardner 2

Foldingthecreasepatternontop(redlinesmountain,bluelinesvalley)bringstogetherthephotograph,whilesimulataneouslyformingthe3DshapeofthelettersMARTINGARDNER,shownbelow.photographusedwithpermissionfromtheArchivesoftheMathematischesForschungsinstitutOberwolfachprintdesignedbyErikDemaineandMartinDemaine,2012