Organic Circle-fold
Faced with a Circle, one draws a blank. Where to start? The shape is too symmetric: a blind eye. How, where, will you find different parts in this Unity? And supposing you do: what creases can you put in, that will possibly preserve anything of the circle's original circularity? Some of these problems, as it happens, are faced by living forms as well. By the fertilized ovum, a single pregnant cell, or by its descendant the blastula, the nearly homogenous sphere of 1000 or so identical cells. These too must divide or fold, to create form. The sphere in nature solves its problem, breaks its symmetry—by gravity perhaps, telling it which side is up and which down, or by some accidental imperfection on its perimeter. In the blastula a fold line arises (the ridge of it assuming special significance later on) and the whole magic of gastrulation begins: nature's origami on steroids. And then differentiation, growth of the different regions can proceed, each part developing accordin...