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TOPOLOGICAL ORIGAMI

Clicks for doughnuts

Nature Physics volume 14, pages 777–778 (2018)Cite this article

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The ideas of topology are breaking ground in origami-based metamaterials. Experiments now show that certain shapes — doughnuts included — exhibit topological bistability, and can be made to click between different topologically stable states.

Physicists and mathematicians seem to reveal a hidden sweet tooth for doughnuts when trying to explain topology. As the classic example goes, a doughnut and a coffee cup are said to be ‘topologically equivalent’ because, in principle, one can be continuously deformed into the other. A doughnut and a Danish, though similarly tasty, are not equivalent because a singularity — the tear necessary to create the hole in the Danish — must be crossed before such a continuous transformation can occur. These abstract considerations of space, connectivity and conformation are the basis of topology, which is experiencing a heyday of sorts in contemporary physics.

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Fig. 1: Topological folding.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. AMOLF, 1098 XG, Amsterdam, the Netherlands

    Scott R. Waitukaitis

  2. Huygens-Kamerlingh Onnes Laboratory at Universiteit Leiden, Leiden, the Netherlands

    Scott R. Waitukaitis

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  1. Scott R. Waitukaitis
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Correspondence to Scott R. Waitukaitis.

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Waitukaitis, S.R. Clicks for doughnuts. Nature Phys 14, 777–778 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41567-018-0160-6

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