American physicist gave up his job at NASA for origami?

It is reported that 56-year-old Robert J. Lan is an American physicist. He obtained a master's degree in electronic engineering from Stanford University, and later returned to his undergraduate school, California Institute of Technology, to pursue a doctorate in applied physics. From 65438 to 0988, Lan began to work in the laboratory of National Aeronautics and Space Administration (). He has published more than 80 papers and held 50 patents in the fields of semiconductor lasers, optical devices and integrated optoelectronics.

When he was a postdoctoral fellow in Germany, he and his wife were fascinated by the cuckoo clock. In particular, Lan Hua spent six months trying to design the scheme, and finally spent six hours folding out the model of the cuckoo clock with a piece of paper. He also applied modern technology to origami, such as using a laser cutting machine to process some complicated models.

In addition, the origami theory developed by Lan has also been applied to real life, helping to solve many engineering problems. He helped a German airbag production company design a folding model, which greatly reduced the space occupied by airbags by folding the feet of insects. In cooperation with a national laboratory in the United States, he successfully "folded" the lens of the space telescope into a small rocket, and also successfully avoided the problem of crease affecting the use.

Now, Lan's old job has become his own sideline. Although he left the engineering field, he still kept in touch with the physics field. He is the editor-in-chief of a professional magazine and also provides scientific advice to semiconductor companies. In the field of origami, Lan has published 8 books and many papers. In 20 12 years, he also became a member of the American Mathematical Society.