Here’s a list of things you never knew about origami – save these gems for dropping into conversation at elegant dinner parties.
- The word origami has only been in use in the English language for 50 years.
- You can fold a piece of paper in half more than seven times.
- You can solve quadratic and cubic equations by folding paper.
- The oldest known origami book, Hiden Senbazuru Orikata, was written in 1797.
- The largest origami crane was 65 metres by 36 metres. The smallest was folded from a 0.25 millimetre square piece of audio tape by Akira Naito.
- The simplest origami model has only one fold, the most complex more than 200 folds.
- There are more than 200 varieties of origami elephant.
- You can make origami models from food, metal, mesh, money, and of course, paper.
- Poppadom (People Out Practising Paperfolding and Dining on Masala) is a society dedicated to folding origami while eating curry.
- Saburo Kase both created and taught origami, despite being blind.
