Remember how hard it was to fold maps? Mathematicians have struggled with map folding problems for ages but a recent insight suggests there might be another way to approach them, making an unlikely connection between combinatorics, origami and engineering.

Suppose you have an infinitely large sheet of paper (mathematicians refer to this hypothetical object as the plane). You also have a number of different colours - pots of paint, perhaps. Your aim is to colour every point on the plane using the colours available. That is, each point must be assigned one colour.