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Smithsonian, June 2007 Issue

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Author: Editors Of Smithsonian Magazine
Publisher: Smithsonian
Category: Book

List Price: ~~$4.99~~
Buy Used: $3.77
You Save: $1.22 (24%)

Rating: 4.0 out of 5 stars

1 reviews
Sales Rank: 1433454

Media: Single Issue Magazine
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.6
Dimensions (in): 10.7 x 7.7 x 0.1

ASIN: B000S6MRXE

Publication Date: July 1, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days

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Customer Reviews:

4 out of 5 stars

Interesting and Educational! November 19, 2008
Loyd E. Eskildson (Phoenix, AZ.)
0 out of 1 found this review helpful

"Reconstructing Petra" tells how archaeologists are piecing together a more complete picture of Jordan's 2,000-year-old rock city. Ancient Petra was a sprawling city of lush gardens and fountains, enormous temples and luxurious Roman-style villas. An ingenious water supply system allowed Petrans not just to drink and bathe, but to grow wheat, cultivate fruit, make wine and stroll in the shade of tall trees. Scholars now know that Petra thrived for nearly 1,000 years, far longer than previously suspected. At its peak, Petra's population was about 30,000. Some 150 scrolls discovered in 1993 reveal a vibrant community well into the seventh century A.D., after which most of the city was finally abandoned. It is now Jordan's top tourist destination; much still remains to be excavated.

"Into the Fold" reports how physicist Robert Lang has taken the ancient art of origami to new dimensions, creating 495 new models, some with hundreds of folds. His creations include turtles with patterned shells, raptors with textured feathers, a rattlesnake with 1,000 scales and a tick the size of a popcorn kernel. His masterpiece, first created in 1987, is a life-size, 15-inch-tall Black Forest cuckoo clock, complete with pendulum, pine cones and stag's head. It is so complex that Lang was asked to demonstrate its folding on Japanese television -- a task that took five hours. Most of these works adhere to one deceptively simple requirement -- the use of a single sheet of paper with no cuts or tears.

During the 1990s Lang developed a computer program to produce sophisticated designs. Called TreeMaker, the program allows artists to draw a stick figure of a desired model on-screen. The software then calculates and prints out the most efficient crease pattern. A second program, called ReferenceFinder, determines the sequence of folds needed to create the model. Lang says he uses the programs only rarely when designing his own pieces, usually when brainstorming the design for the basic structure of a particular model.

A computer algorithm developed by Lang allowed engineers to fold various airbag shapes for simulation. Lang has also consulted with engineers at California's Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory on a new generation space-based telescope dubbed Eyeglass. The goal is to put huge telescopes up to 328 feet in diameter into orbit. Getting such a behemoth into space poses a problem because the hold of the space shuttle measures a slim 15 feet in diameter. Lang devised a folding pattern for a 16-foot-diameter prototype that can be folded for transport, then unfurled like a flower coming into bloom once in space.

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