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2015 ‫מועד יולי‬ - 41 - ‫ פרק ראשון‬- ‫ אנגלית‬

Text II (Questions 18-22)

(1) Creating an animal from a single piece of paper is one of life's greatest pleasures.
Few other activities are as accessible and rewarding as origami, the art of paper folding.

Though paper was first made – and no doubt folded – in China in the first or second
century CE, it was the Japanese who turned paper folding into an art form. The earliest

(5) records of origami in Japan date to the Heian Period (794-1185), the golden age of
Japan's nobility and a time of great artistic and cultural advances. Because paper was a
rare commodity, origami remained a pastime for the elite, who passed the techniques
down orally from generation to generation. It was only at the end of the 18th century
that the first instruction manuals were published, bringing the joys of paper folding to a

(10) wider audience.

Recently, origami has propelled itself into the realm of science. Physicist and
engineer Robert J. Lang, who is also considered one of the world's greatest origami
artists and designers, applied the principles of paper folding to a very practical subject:
car airbags. In the event of a collision, airbags must expand completely in milliseconds

(15) and provide firm enough support to prevent injury. It turns out that flattening a three-
dimensional airbag so that it will fit into a steering wheel and inflate correctly on impact
employs the same principles as folding a flat sheet of paper into a three-dimensional
shape. Thanks to his expertise in origami, Lang determined how best to fold an airbag
and ensure its effective deployment and operation.

(20) The possibilities of origami are endless. By digging deeper into the mathematics of
origami and combining folding principles with engineering needs, scientists continue to

innovate and invent.

Questions

18. An appropriate title for this text would be -

(1) A Brief History of Origami
(2) Origami: Ancient Art Meets Modern Engineering
(3) Robert Lang: Scientist and Origami Artist
(4) Origami: The Magic of Paper Folding

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