Christian Santangelo, a physicist at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, who also collaborated on the 2014 paper, agrees. Not enough researchers are tackling the problem of defects in origami, in his opinion, and if anything, he hopes this work will get more people to think about the problem. “Of the people who are actually building things, it doesn’t seem to be on their radar,” he said. Whether it is or not, origami technology will require a careful consideration of defects. “These structures,” he said, “aren’t just going to fold themselves.”

This article was reprinted on Wired.com.