[uoaei]

Also don't get hung up on "folded". He hasn't innovated a design (it was invented by a Japanese astrophysicist, Miura-Ori), merely measured sustainable load across different designs.

[adfm]

Don't get hug up on "invented". Ruth Asawa registered for (1956) and received US patent 185,504 on June 16, 1959 at the suggestion of her professor, Buckminster Fuller.

https://theartian.com/ruth-asawa-patent-collaboration/

[Centrino]

Don't get hung up on "patent". You can't patent an idea, you patent a specific implementation of an idea.

The boy experimented to find the optimal parameters (height, width, angles) for load bearing of that earlier invention.

So, the result of his work would warrant a new patent, of course with reference to all earlier patents of which his work is an improvement.

[croisillon]

i hear he didn't even produce the paper himself

[ForHackernews]

He literally did fold all the folds himself. He didn't even get an LLM to reskin VS Code for him and apply to Y Combinator.

[jacobolus]

"To reduce human errors in his experiments, Wu opted to use a scoring machine to accurately fold the origami patterns."

[nine_k]

"Miura" is the name of the astrophysicist. "Ori" (折り) just means "fold", as in "origami" = "fold+paper".

[uoaei]

Thank you!

[avadodin]

Being able to hold 10x the weight of paper doesn't sound so impressive that it would require an astrophysicist to invent it.

I was more ready to accept the headline if it had been invented by the kid.

Are you telling me you can't roll up 10 origami papers and stand them on a reasonably stable origami pattern?

[retube]

it's 10k, 10,000, not 10