What's new
Essays arrive in groups rather than one at a time, and a group usually opens up a subject not covered before. Between one group and the next nothing changes, so a reader who has seen the most recent group has seen everything.
5 November 2026
5 essays on designing a base, folding nobody designed, who found it, and when, tessellations and what it costs to know
The split that is worst on a rectangle
Two families of grafted strips share an allowance of shortfall, and the bill is a product of two sides whose sum the allowance fixes. So where the allowance goes is a question about a rectangle with a set perimeter: its area is largest when level and smallest when lopsided. On a sheet that may be any rectangle the split that levels the sides is the dearest there is, and it is barely dearer, because the gap enters squared. On a square sheet the same split is the cheapest, and the gap enters to first order, ninety-four times as heavily on five features. On a grid the first answer dissolves — the strip nearest a line decides, not the family — and the second does not.
Folding nobody designedA crease held the other way
Hold a creased sheet on the far side of flat and its memory crosses zero after τ ln(1 + φ₀⁄φₕ), a time that contains no stiffness and no fold count. Asking what happens at that moment shows that two accounts of a corrugation's energy cannot both stand: a hinge whose memory can cross zero gives one parabola and no barrier at all. The barrier belongs to a degree-four vertex, whose two branches turn out to be at right angles in the space of its fold angles. Held on the other branch its wall dips and never falls, and its two resting states trade depth at nearly the same logarithm, with lengths in place of angles. Only the exact mirror takes every rest angle through zero together, which is the fastest way to erase a crease and the least forgiving.
Who found it, and whenHalf the waterbomb's rules have no stack
The recipes for the waterbomb and the Yoshimura were written for the repeating rules that pass the vertex conditions, and nobody had asked those rules for a folded state. Asked, sixteen of the waterbomb's thirty-two have none, and four of the Yoshimura's twenty-six. Four panels are enough to refuse a waterbomb rule, in five lines, by forcing two creases on one folded line to interleave. And the waterbomb's surviving rules turn out to be exactly what a recipe of its kind was proved unable to describe: five same-and-differ clauses and no prohibition. Counting the layers shortens the waterbomb's recipe and lengthens the Yoshimura's, whose refusals are not local at all.
TessellationsThe Yoshimura folds flat at a few heights
The Yoshimura's row height has always been treated as a free dial below the equilateral: the sectors close, the counts hold, the lemma has nothing to forbid. Asked for an actual stack of layers, its usual lettering refuses nearly everywhere. Folded, its triangles turn round one centre by twice the base angle at each step, and they close on a ring only when that angle is π over a whole number: a triangle at sixty degrees, a square at forty-five, a pentagon at thirty-six. At any other height the rosette spirals, and seven panels are enough to prove it cannot pass itself. Below π over the number of rows plus two, it does not get far enough round to meet itself, so the small patch hides this too.
What it costs to knowThe proportion everyone draws is the hard one
The Yoshimura is drawn equilateral, and every cost and count of it has been measured there. Moved a quarter of a step along its own height dial, a search for a stacking that took 268,650 steps takes 808, and a sheet with 9,790 folded states has 92. The equilateral pattern is the most expensive member of its family on every sheet measured, because exact coincidence removes the conditions that a panel lying across a crease would impose: from 1,024 conditions to none. A drawing chosen for being easy to construct is the one instance where almost nothing constrains the layers, and a population of one chosen drawing had been reporting that freedom as the difficulty of the pattern.
Before that
Everything published earlier, newest first. Titles only — the cards are on the full listing.
3 November 2026
3 essays on who found it, and when, what it costs to know and rigid folding
- A trapped run is holding four letters — who found it, and when
- The torus keeps its tail — what it costs to know
- A fragment counts creases, not length — rigid folding
30 October 2026
3 essays on tessellations, designing a base and axioms and construction
- What refused the mirror was the rim — tessellations
- Two corners compete across an edge — designing a base
- Each new fold can cross every old one — axioms and construction
23 October 2026
3 essays on what it costs to know, curves and material and folding nobody designed
- An odd strip can hook its own ends — what it costs to know
- What a loop of creases carries — curves and material
- Growth that only turns — folding nobody designed
21 October 2026
4 essays on who found it, and when, curves and material, rigid folding and tessellations
- Two stacks shuffled in glued pairs — who found it, and when
- An array is priced by its vertices — curves and material
- No placement cleans every drawing — rigid folding
- Clamped, a stack counts in pairs — tessellations
19 October 2026
5 essays on rigid folding, tessellations, designing a base, folding nobody designed and axioms and construction
- A stack is a shared fate — rigid folding
- Eight creases close the circle too — tessellations
- A corner turned shows the sheet beneath — designing a base
- A cut cannot tell which way a leaf grew — folding nobody designed
- Two sides at sixty are enough — axioms and construction
14 October 2026
7 essays on rigid folding, axioms and construction, designing a base, folding nobody designed, who found it, and when, what it costs to know and curves and material
- Splitting insures only the failures that come alone — rigid folding
- The window has an exact edge — axioms and construction
- Equal effort was counted in steps — designing a base
- A circle sees only the average — folding nobody designed
- A long run shows itself early — who found it, and when
- The route built from the gluing — what it costs to know
- A slit tip keeps one condition — curves and material
5 October 2026
4 essays on folding nobody designed, who found it, and when, what it costs to know and curves and material
- A shared supply is the same bill — folding nobody designed
- A line in the columns, a binomial in the rows — who found it, and when
- The machine's misses have no short list — what it costs to know
- A start is worth an inverse square — curves and material
2 October 2026
4 essays on tessellations, designing a base and axioms and construction
- A twisted tube has two heights — tessellations
- Four clicks make sixteen lengths — tessellations
- Half the difference is a theorem — designing a base
- The worst angle sets the price — axioms and construction
30 September 2026
6 essays on who found it, and when, curves and material, folding nobody designed, designing a base, rigid folding and what it costs to know
- A resampled maximum can only fall — who found it, and when
- Crossing the curve moves no start — curves and material
- Reach taxes the extra lengths — folding nobody designed
- Six creases belong to the square — designing a base
- Parallel creases forgive every lean — rigid folding
- A tube refuses round itself — what it costs to know
27 September 2026
6 essays on curves and material, tessellations, designing a base, axioms and construction, folding nobody designed and rigid folding
- The paper reads strain — curves and material
- A dial can turn the fold over — tessellations
- The event is an incircle — designing a base
- The rule has a width — axioms and construction
- Supply decides whether lengths pay — folding nobody designed
- A cut along the zigzag needs a tether — rigid folding
26 September 2026
8 essays on what it costs to know, axioms and construction, designing a base, who found it, and when, curves and material, rigid folding, tessellations and folding nobody designed
- The long circles go round the middle — what it costs to know
- A sheet rewards the multiples of its sides — axioms and construction
- The grid belongs to the subject — designing a base
- A proud hundredth buys almost nothing — who found it, and when
- The floor at degree four — curves and material
- The slant belongs to the line — rigid folding
- A sheet that turns with the twist — tessellations
- A lumen costs nothing until it does — folding nobody designed
25 September 2026
7 essays on curves and material, tessellations, rigid folding, designing a base, axioms and construction, who found it, and when and what it costs to know
- Where two bands part — curves and material
- Every panel holds a frame — tessellations
- The slant that stacks in one depth — rigid folding
- A grid chosen before the features — designing a base
- An odd polygon fits like its double — axioms and construction
- A perfect tree is the joins it leaves out — who found it, and when
- A map refuses in small pieces — what it costs to know
24 September 2026
8 essays on designing a base, tessellations, curves and material, rigid folding, axioms and construction, who found it, and when, folding nobody designed and what it costs to know
- A spacing costs one plus the other side — designing a base
- The folded strip lies at its own slant — tessellations
- A disc as deep as the degree — curves and material
- The rows are free — rigid folding
- A fold is worth what follows it — axioms and construction
- No odd grid holds a perfect tree — who found it, and when
- A corridor has two mouths — folding nobody designed
- Nine stamps have piles of their own — what it costs to know
23 September 2026
8 essays on axioms and construction, designing a base, who found it, and when, rigid folding, folding nobody designed and what it costs to know
- What the square saves — axioms and construction
- One sheet down — designing a base
- Turning is uphill all the way — axioms and construction
- One choice with eleven answers — who found it, and when
- Two faults, not four — rigid folding
- The wedge belongs to one length — folding nobody designed
- The deepest point pays for the paper — who found it, and when
- The cheapest route crosses later — what it costs to know
19 September 2026
12 essays on tessellations, curves and material, folding nobody designed, what it costs to know and rigid folding
- One number where the corners wanted four — tessellations
- Every twist writes an equilibrium — tessellations
- The sheet draws in crooked — tessellations
- The plane the five points were in — tessellations
- The direction that gets longer — tessellations
- Only one side can run out — curves and material
- The angle the eight does not know — folding nobody designed
- In a tube the standing members lose — folding nobody designed
- Each drawing has its own threshold — what it costs to know
- The route, not the sheet — what it costs to know
- A stub is never alone — rigid folding
- An angle that turns faster than the crease — curves and material
16 September 2026
32 essays on folding nobody designed, what it costs to know, axioms and construction, designing a base, who found it, and when, curves and material, rigid folding and tessellations
- A domain too short to be unique — folding nobody designed
- A test that only knows one lattice — folding nobody designed
- Deciding is not making — what it costs to know
- The easiest strip needs the deepest reach — what it costs to know
- Twos and threes run out — axioms and construction
- Gauss's polygon is the expensive one — axioms and construction
- The axiom that reaches furthest wastes most — axioms and construction
- Six rectangles and one term — designing a base
- A design that keeps its lines clear — designing a base
- The width is charged in grid — designing a base
- A sheet is as large as two arms — who found it, and when
- The paper that will not hold a crease — who found it, and when
- Eighty layers and the sheet decides the rest — who found it, and when
- A length needs a scale — curves and material
- The density a paper allows — curves and material
- The crossing is as hard as the polygon — axioms and construction
- The sheet a polygon fits exactly — axioms and construction
- A paper limits spacing, not density — curves and material
- A vertex creases the paper twice — curves and material
- A shallow machine pays in states, not folds — what it costs to know
- Fourteen states are one pile — what it costs to know
- A price holds until the arrangement moves — designing a base
- Rounding in the cheap direction — designing a base
- A failure teaches a schedule nothing — who found it, and when
- The field is empty where it would say nothing — who found it, and when
- A gearing reflects stiffness squared — rigid folding
- The deciding set does not move — rigid folding
- Splitting a sheet buys area, not certainty — rigid folding
- The pattern cheapest to trust — rigid folding
- Holding a fold moves the force — folding nobody designed
- A loop takes choices away — folding nobody designed
- Closing the loops is not folding — tessellations
15 September 2026
20 essays on folding nobody designed, axioms and construction, designing a base, who found it, and when, curves and material and rigid folding
- How far open is a question about the grip — folding nobody designed
- Springs that disagree do not offer a choice — folding nobody designed
- Standing up beats lying down by eight — folding nobody designed
- The channel grows with what it feeds — folding nobody designed
- Each fold needs its own two — axioms and construction
- Counting operations is not counting power — axioms and construction
- A crease that does not exist yet — axioms and construction
- Every pair, not every circle — designing a base
- What the condition does not decide — designing a base
- The price of a limb is not its length — designing a base
- The interval is wider than the number — who found it, and when
- A question the record is too small to answer — who found it, and when
- Some discoveries would make it worse — who found it, and when
- Crowding outward costs almost nothing — curves and material
- Three answers, one count — curves and material
- Where a ring of divisions belongs — curves and material
- Only four creases decide a Miura — rigid folding
- Two drivers and one freedom — rigid folding
- What a second deployment costs — rigid folding
- The crease count is a reliability budget — rigid folding
13 September 2026
9 essays on who found it, and when, folding nobody designed, rigid folding, axioms and construction and curves and material
- The border is where the cranes come apart — who found it, and when
- The wall is the flat sheet — folding nobody designed
- Two sentences for the Yoshimura — who found it, and when
- Every cheap test misses a shape — folding nobody designed
- A panel is not the unit of depth — rigid folding
- Every even polygon beats every odd one — axioms and construction
- Crowd the tucks toward the rim — curves and material
- The prediction held at eight and broke at ten — who found it, and when
- A chain of vertices switches all at once — folding nobody designed
12 September 2026
15 essays on folding nobody designed, who found it, and when, curves and material, rigid folding, axioms and construction and designing a base
- A nest pays four a level — folding nobody designed
- The fold count sets the spring — folding nobody designed
- A corrugation has one resting state — folding nobody designed
- The helix chooses the lattice — folding nobody designed
- A row the route cannot leave — folding nobody designed
- Three marks see nothing — folding nobody designed
- A cut reads a slope — folding nobody designed
- What the hindsight was worth — who found it, and when
- Nearly every cutting fails at one crane — who found it, and when
- A recipe needs degree four — who found it, and when
- A tuck keeps what a gore cuts — curves and material
- A straight tuck is a cone point — curves and material
- Three kinds of pile — rigid folding
- A stretch keeps crossings — axioms and construction
- A graft needs a square line — designing a base
10 September 2026
20 essays on folding nobody designed, axioms and construction and who found it, and when
- The census returns one — folding nobody designed
- Four materials, four optima — folding nobody designed
- The number is the angle — folding nobody designed
- The surface has to be supplied — folding nobody designed
- Two surfaces in one box — folding nobody designed
- The container picks the member — folding nobody designed
- The test measures the rim — folding nobody designed
- Reachable is not cheap — axioms and construction
- The field has no edge — axioms and construction
- How many polygons a fold reaches — axioms and construction
- What buys the reach costs the accuracy — axioms and construction
- Twenty-two is a floor — axioms and construction
- The square is in the answer — axioms and construction
- A construction assumes its sheet — axioms and construction
- A sheet has a size as well — who found it, and when
- Which ceiling is binding — who found it, and when
- How many wedges the paper allows — who found it, and when
- Which cranes can stay joined — who found it, and when
- When two of them are first attested together — who found it, and when
- One lost source and the story changes — who found it, and when
5 September 2026
50 essays on flat-folding, tessellations, what it costs to know, curves and material, designing a base, rigid folding, axioms and construction, who found it, and when and folding nobody designed
- The seam carries a sign — flat-folding
- The band that needs an odd number — flat-folding
- Closure is not the identity — flat-folding
- Parity is not enough — flat-folding
- The triangle a strip becomes — flat-folding
- An alternating sum of angles — flat-folding
- How rare a band that folds is — flat-folding
- Half a rim — flat-folding
- The rim adds up — flat-folding
- Euler counts the gluing — flat-folding
- A grid that will not close — flat-folding
- The corrugation that closes on itself — tessellations
- One node per panel, with the rim gone — tessellations
- The turn a column costs — tessellations
- The period nobody measured — tessellations
- Half the slack — what it costs to know
- Which pair is glued — what it costs to know
- A cut is surgery — curves and material
- Two holes are two conditions — curves and material
- A proof in no nodes at all — what it costs to know
- The cost of asking the wrong sheet — what it costs to know
- One population, four sheets — what it costs to know
- A map with no edges — what it costs to know
- The tube a map makes — what it costs to know
- A tessellation on a cylinder — tessellations
- The seam that is not a symmetry — tessellations
- A metamaterial with no edge — tessellations
- A bottom layer on half a rim — flat-folding
- The arc that arrived twice — flat-folding
- The drawing does not say what is glued — flat-folding
- A sheet with two edges — designing a base
- The corner premium, with no corners — designing a base
- A base needs an edge to point at — designing a base
- A grid glued — designing a base
- The symmetry a gluing adds — designing a base
- A crease with no vertex to belong to — curves and material
- The sixth thing that is not true — curves and material
- The cut that changes nothing — curves and material
- Two panels that are one panel — rigid folding
- A mechanism that closes on itself — rigid folding
- The tube that gets built — rigid folding
- Thickness round a closed loop — rigid folding
- Which of the seven survive — axioms and construction
- A reference on a sheet with no corner — axioms and construction
- Dividing a loop into n — axioms and construction
- The proportion a band asks for — axioms and construction
- Found by people not folding paper — who found it, and when
- A theorem with an unstated hypothesis — who found it, and when
- No format has a gluing — who found it, and when
- Nothing grown has a seam — folding nobody designed
3 September 2026
20 essays on what it costs to know, flat-folding, tessellations, designing a base, curves and material, rigid folding, who found it, and when and folding nobody designed
- What the rim was doing — what it costs to know
- A loop that goes somewhere — flat-folding
- The lettering that was proved impossible — flat-folding
- A sheet with no edge — flat-folding
- The rim is four letters a cell — flat-folding
- The bottom layer is at the rim — flat-folding
- One step per panel is a table size — flat-folding
- Six creases and the same straight line — flat-folding
- A knife edge nine decimals wide — flat-folding
- Pruning on proofs alone — what it costs to know
- The cost of proving something false — what it costs to know
- Where you cut hardly matters — what it costs to know
- The most decided vertex here — tessellations
- Folding it flat is one similarity — tessellations
- The edge was not what made it hard — designing a base
- The designer's grid is the dearest thing here — designing a base
- A count is not a length — curves and material
- An order with no least element — rigid folding
- A test imported without its hypothesis — who found it, and when
- Nothing grown was cut out of anything — folding nobody designed
1 September 2026
20 essays on flat-folding, what it costs to know, tessellations, curves and material, rigid folding, designing a base, folding nobody designed and who found it, and when
- The difficulty was in the coin — flat-folding
- The order that is its own mirror — flat-folding
- Which choice the cost lives in — what it costs to know
- The order that proves nothing exists — what it costs to know
- One witness or forty — flat-folding
- The crease the drawing cannot show — flat-folding
- A patch on a knife edge — flat-folding
- A region with no lettering — flat-folding
- A population nobody chose — what it costs to know
- Restarting what cannot be restarted — what it costs to know
- The dial and the tiling that is not alike — tessellations
- A corrugation never backtracks — tessellations
- The shortest crease is not a crease — curves and material
- A crumple has no tail — curves and material
- A search with nothing to reorder — rigid folding
- The motion has no letters to choose — rigid folding
- Ninety-nine in a hundred pass — designing a base
- The edge is what makes it hard — designing a base
- The plant's pattern is not a hard case — folding nobody designed
- The cure was named first — who found it, and when
31 August 2026
20 essays on flat-folding, tessellations, what it costs to know, curves and material, axioms and construction, who found it, and when, rigid folding, designing a base and folding nobody designed
- The lettering nobody could draw — flat-folding
- Which condition does the refusing — flat-folding
- One solution of a search nobody ran — flat-folding
- Every move leaves the verdict — flat-folding
- Twelve creases a micrometre long — flat-folding
- Sixty-four rules, sixteen fold — tessellations
- The loop is in the rule — tessellations
- Four easy patches and one that is not — tessellations
- Where a rule can close a loop — tessellations
- Stopping is cheaper than finishing — what it costs to know
- Four populations with nothing to separate — what it costs to know
- Where a sector crosses sixty — flat-folding
- The test that never fires on a map — what it costs to know
- Rare is not hard — curves and material
- The third fold cannot be listed — axioms and construction
- Half the recipe is decoration — who found it, and when
- The tail was named somewhere else — who found it, and when
- Refused at one lettering — rigid folding
- What a grid costs in circuits — designing a base
- The leaf's rules are the Miura's — folding nobody designed
30 August 2026
20 essays on flat-folding, tessellations, what it costs to know, curves and material, rigid folding, designing a base, axioms and construction, who found it, and when and folding nobody designed
- A proof in one pass — flat-folding
- The loop a vertex cannot close — flat-folding
- The loop is not the tangle — flat-folding
- A contradiction is even — flat-folding
- Consistent is not foldable — flat-folding
- Letters that agree get rarer — tessellations
- The ring is the loop — tessellations
- A corrugation agrees with itself — tessellations
- The rule that breaks the count — tessellations
- The refusal that reads the list once — what it costs to know
- A population that cannot fail — what it costs to know
- The letters a crumple was given — curves and material
- One cut removes one arc — curves and material
- Two refusals that refuse differently — rigid folding
- A tree cannot argue — designing a base
- The axiom that names two folds — axioms and construction
- How far from the nearest reference — axioms and construction
- The file records no verdict — who found it, and when
- The first thing about layers — who found it, and when
- The taper decides nothing — folding nobody designed
29 August 2026
20 essays on flat-folding, tessellations, rigid folding, designing a base, what it costs to know, curves and material, axioms and construction, who found it, and when and folding nobody designed
- The vertex the list does not have — flat-folding
- Two creases that cross — flat-folding
- Cutting a patch out of a plane — tessellations
- Most of a patch is edge — flat-folding
- The property a patch does not have — tessellations
- The paper a pattern asks for — tessellations
- One cut for a star — flat-folding
- Two mechanisms at one point — rigid folding
- How deep is a crossing — rigid folding
- The corner that splits the shrink — designing a base
- A notch is not a hole — designing a base
- The order the refusals come in — what it costs to know
- Drawn by the same hand — what it costs to know
- Where the length sits — curves and material
- A cut that reaches the edge — curves and material
- An axiom may name no fold — axioms and construction
- The edge was there first — axioms and construction
- A file has no paper — who found it, and when
- The reader decides the junction — who found it, and when
- A leaf ends its pattern — folding nobody designed
27 August 2026
15 essays on flat-folding, tessellations, curves and material, designing a base, what it costs to know, folding nobody designed, rigid folding, axioms and construction and who found it, and when
- No height to swap — flat-folding
- The rim lies over less — flat-folding
- The lettering that folds nowhere — flat-folding
- The tiling the unit could not promise — tessellations
- The crumple keeps its options — curves and material
- Which side arrives — designing a base
- The map counted from the layers — what it costs to know
- Twice as thick where it is thickest — folding nobody designed
- Spending the cheap paper — designing a base
- How much line is on the paper — curves and material
- The patterns a checker is tested on — what it costs to know
- A collision is an order — rigid folding
- Fourth of eight, and still not chosen for it — rigid folding
- The grid a division makes — axioms and construction
- Taught with a wrong reason — who found it, and when
26 August 2026
15 essays on flat-folding, rigid folding, designing a base, what it costs to know, curves and material, tessellations, axioms and construction, who found it, and when and folding nobody designed
- The pieces without the list — flat-folding
- Nothing slides past anything — flat-folding
- A ring and a line — flat-folding
- The allowance is spent at the end — rigid folding
- The hardest instant — rigid folding
- The symmetry the letters cannot keep — designing a base
- A hole is cheap paper — designing a base
- The count counts labels — what it costs to know
- Where the machine catches up — what it costs to know
- The decision a crumple has taken — curves and material
- A cut is not local — curves and material
- Thirty-two rules, thirty-two pieces — tessellations
- A hole is an edge — axioms and construction
- Two kinds of claim — who found it, and when
- Two ceilings — folding nobody designed
24 August 2026
15 essays on flat-folding, rigid folding, designing a base, tessellations, curves and material, what it costs to know, axioms and construction, who found it, and when and folding nobody designed
- The vertices nobody checks — flat-folding
- Walking between two foldings — flat-folding
- The creases that cannot move — flat-folding
- Closing is not building — rigid folding
- A tolerance is a direction — rigid folding
- The pile, not the panel — rigid folding
- The other grid — designing a base
- Two packings, one radius — designing a base
- Thirty-two rules, one object — tessellations
- A cut is a licence — curves and material
- Four ways to draw a pattern — what it costs to know
- The cost is in the coincidences — what it costs to know
- The sheet decides which points exist — axioms and construction
- The half no notation records — who found it, and when
- Four finders, one option — folding nobody designed
22 August 2026
15 essays on flat-folding, rigid folding, tessellations, designing a base, curves and material, axioms and construction, what it costs to know and who found it, and when
- A tie is not a decision — flat-folding
- The order decides the count — flat-folding
- Which side is showing — flat-folding
- Solving every face at once — rigid folding
- Solved is not built — rigid folding
- Which crease to push — rigid folding
- The Miura folds two ways — tessellations
- Nothing to average over — tessellations
- Decided before the design — designing a base
- The shapes the optimum has — designing a base
- The fifth thing that is not true — curves and material
- The gap between two curves — curves and material
- Exact is not accurate — axioms and construction
- Which vertices are the random ones — what it costs to know
- The patterns nobody owns — who found it, and when
21 August 2026
15 essays on flat-folding, rigid folding, tessellations, designing a base, curves and material, axioms and construction and what it costs to know
- Crimp it away and ask again — flat-folding
- One marking, many objects — flat-folding
- The order does not name it either — flat-folding
- The condition that is not flat-foldability — rigid folding
- One crease decides the sheet — rigid folding
- Thickness has a sign — rigid folding
- The propagation that never had to work — tessellations
- The dial that decides nothing — tessellations
- The whole alphabet of a grid — designing a base
- The second term — designing a base
- Where the rulings run out — curves and material
- The sheet remembers — curves and material
- Closer than a crease is wide — axioms and construction
- Seven, and then twenty-two — axioms and construction
- A short reason to say no — what it costs to know
20 August 2026
15 essays on flat-folding, curves and material, rigid folding, designing a base, tessellations, axioms and construction and what it costs to know
- Even is not enough — flat-folding
- Where the lemma says nothing — flat-folding
- The shadow does not name the pattern — flat-folding
- How little the conditions decide — flat-folding
- A cut that removes no paper — curves and material
- The crease that stops in the middle — curves and material
- The family the Miura belongs to — rigid folding
- Where an error goes — rigid folding
- The flap nobody holds — designing a base
- Spelling a tree on a grid — designing a base
- The skeleton changes its mind — designing a base
- The corrugation that curves — tessellations
- What each axiom is worth — axioms and construction
- The numbers a fold reaches — axioms and construction
- The map that is not a rectangle — what it costs to know
19 August 2026
15 essays on tessellations, curves and material, designing a base, what it costs to know, flat-folding, axioms and construction and rigid folding
- Any tiling makes a twist — tessellations
- Where two twists share a pleat — tessellations
- Fenced at both ends — tessellations
- The creases a sheet gives itself — curves and material
- Every facet is a layer — curves and material
- One cut short of falling apart — curves and material
- What the grid settles — designing a base
- A no costs more than a yes — what it costs to know
- A near miss is nearly as rare — flat-folding
- The outline is mostly crease — flat-folding
- One crossing, and then another — axioms and construction
- One member of a family — axioms and construction
- Cheap where it reaches — axioms and construction
- Two directions that will not separate — what it costs to know
- The vertex is geared — rigid folding
17 August 2026
15 essays on flat-folding, curves and material, rigid folding, axioms and construction, designing a base and tessellations
- The lengths are free — flat-folding
- More than one way to lie flat — flat-folding
- Nothing meets at three — flat-folding
- What one cut buys — curves and material
- Bought with holes — curves and material
- A curve has no panels — curves and material
- Paper through paper — rigid folding
- Nowhere to put the error — rigid folding
- The only pattern that moves — rigid folding
- A fold needs something to align — axioms and construction
- The rectangle that keeps its shape — axioms and construction
- Paying in paper — designing a base
- The corner is worth four times the middle — designing a base
- The cylinder the pattern chooses — tessellations
- A shrink is two numbers — tessellations
16 August 2026
15 essays on flat-folding, designing a base, rigid folding, tessellations, axioms and construction and curves and material
- The sheet has two sides — flat-folding
- The paper is all still there — flat-folding
- Almost every pattern fails — flat-folding
- Where the paper stops — flat-folding
- Bringing the other side to the front — designing a base
- When symmetry costs — designing a base
- The square is a choice — designing a base
- Error is folded too — rigid folding
- The base that tiles — tessellations
- A unit that folds is not a tessellation — tessellations
- What a corrugation costs — tessellations
- Two creases at once — axioms and construction
- The largest triangle in a square — axioms and construction
- The biggest one that can also be folded — axioms and construction
- Where curved creases meet — curves and material
14 August 2026
15 essays on folding nobody designed
- A sheet that grows cannot lie flat — folding nobody designed
- Which way the disc curves — folding nobody designed
- The excess does not choose its waves — folding nobody designed
- A crease carries no curvature — folding nobody designed
- A leaf packs by corrugating — folding nobody designed
- The bud chooses the pattern — folding nobody designed
- Opening with nothing to pull — folding nobody designed
- A wing that folds into nothing — folding nobody designed
- No motor in the fold — folding nobody designed
- Nothing in a body folds on a line — folding nobody designed
- How much surface fits in a body — folding nobody designed
- A sheet that routes itself — folding nobody designed
- Two things called folding — folding nobody designed
- The same corrugation in four places — folding nobody designed
- The organism is not the model — folding nobody designed
13 August 2026
15 essays on who found it, and when
- Nothing here is as old as it sounds — who found it, and when
- The oldest book cuts the paper — who found it, and when
- The name is not the date — who found it, and when
- Fifty years in the wrong language — who found it, and when
- A record is not a proof — who found it, and when
- The kindergarten was a geometry class — who found it, and when
- A schoolteacher's theorem — who found it, and when
- What a dashed line can say — who found it, and when
- Publishing the pattern instead of the sequence — who found it, and when
- Found before it was designed — who found it, and when
- The same vertex, found four times — who found it, and when
- Two traditions and a merge — who found it, and when
- The paper had to arrive first — who found it, and when
- The star that was cut before it was proved — who found it, and when
- From a shell to a solar array — who found it, and when
11 August 2026
15 essays on what it costs to know, axioms and construction, tessellations, designing a base and curves and material
- The fold a machine can make — what it costs to know
- The patient machine is the weak one — what it costs to know
- A machine that can only crimp — what it costs to know
- The machine that may choose — what it costs to know
- Four questions about one sheet — what it costs to know
- Hardness is about the worst one — what it costs to know
- The answer is bigger than the question — what it costs to know
- Where the exponent comes from — what it costs to know
- What a checker cannot check — what it costs to know
- What universality costs — what it costs to know
- Getting close instead of getting it right — what it costs to know
- The eleven-sided one nobody can fold — axioms and construction
- Which polygons twist — tessellations
- The molecule that does not exist — designing a base
- How many times can it be halved — curves and material
10 August 2026
12 essays on flat-folding, what it costs to know, designing a base, axioms and construction, tessellations, rigid folding and curves and material
- How many assignments fold — flat-folding
- The gadgets that make it hard — flat-folding
- The oldest open problem — what it costs to know
- From a packing to a crease pattern — designing a base
- The last free parameter — designing a base
- Folding a strip into thirds — axioms and construction
- Where the cubic comes from — axioms and construction
- A property you can dial — tessellations
- A state no motion reaches — rigid folding
- Panels with somewhere to go — rigid folding
- The crease has a radius — curves and material
- One curve and one number — curves and material
7 August 2026
15 essays on tessellations, rigid folding and curves and material
- A sheet with one freedom — tessellations
- A square that turns — tessellations
- A material made of creases — tessellations
- Patterns nobody designed — tessellations
- Panels instead of paper — rigid folding
- What the vertex does on the way — rigid folding
- The sheet has a thickness — rigid folding
- Getting thickness round a corner — rigid folding
- Paper that folds itself — rigid folding
- Folding that gets built — rigid folding
- A crease that curves — curves and material
- The sculptors got there first — curves and material
- What a flat sheet can become — curves and material
- Four things that are not true — curves and material
- Paper that stretches on purpose — curves and material
3 August 2026
19 essays on axioms and construction, flat-folding, designing a base and tessellations
- One fold at a time, and there are exactly seven of them — axioms and construction
- Folding beats the compass, by exactly one degree — axioms and construction
- Why the list stops at seven — axioms and construction
- Dividing without measuring — axioms and construction
- The heptagon a compass cannot reach — axioms and construction
- Two conditions at a point — flat-folding
- Why the difference is two — flat-folding
- The smallest sector decides — flat-folding
- Local is not global — flat-folding
- Which layer goes on top — flat-folding
- A strip is decidable — flat-folding
- One straight cut — flat-folding
- A flap costs a circle — designing a base
- Packing is the hard part — designing a base
- What joins the flaps — designing a base
- How much paper is wasted — designing a base
- Designing on a grid — designing a base
- Every flap on one axis — designing a base
- One vertex, repeated — tessellations