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ReferenceFinder: Find coordinates on a piece of paper with only folds

mutsuntsai.github.io

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Re: ReferenceFinder: Find coordinates on a piece of paper with only folds

#7
Folding is more powerful than ruler and compass constructions. One can do cube roots, angle trisections and more.

Coincidentally enough, I had mentioned straight edge and ruler constructions in a different thread a few minutes ago

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47112418

Related older thread

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45222882

Re: ReferenceFinder: Find coordinates on a piece of paper with only folds

#9
post #3

Is this brute forcing, or is there more to it?

There's more to it. Origami as a calculation tool is more powerful than compass and straight edge.

Is there? I followed the link[1] to the original author of the desktop software this web app is derived from, and he says:

> To make a long story short, by the third generation of ReferenceFinder (written in 2003), I had incorporated all 7 of the Huzita-Justin Axioms of folding into the program, allowing it to potentially explore all possible folding sequences consisting of sequential alignments that each form a single crease in a square of paper. Of course, the family tree of such sequences grows explosively (or to be precise, exponentially); but the concomitant growth in the availability of computing horsepower has made it possible to explore a reasonable subset of that exponential family tree, and in effect, by pure brute force, find a close approximation to any arbitrary point or line within a unit square using a very small number of folds.

(emphasis added)

[1] https://langorigami.com/article/referencefinder/

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