At a recent dinner at my Cambridge University college, I was introduced to a young American engineer – the son of one of our Visiting Fellows.
“What kind of engineering are you into?” I asked him.
“Origami,” he answered.
He must have misheard me due to my accent.
“Sorry, I was curious about your field of engineering – not your favourite hobby,” said I.
He smiled. “I work for an origami engineering company, where we are finding practical applications for that ancient Japanese art of folding paper and other objects.”
“I know what you mean,” I interrupted. “I’ve always been hopeless in folding up my shirts to put into a suitcase without making a huge mess and have to ask my wife to do it. As my late mum used to say, my hands grew from a wrong spot, haha.”
My patient interlocutor then explained that origami engineering, still in its infancy, was not just about packing suitcases but had many practical uses – in medicine, design, robotics, space exploration...