Mobius Strips

Yesterday in Math class we did a short activity on Mobius Strips.

To make them, we took a strip of paper and taped the ends together. Some we put in one twist, some two. Then we cut the strips in half length-wise to see what happened.

It was mind-boggling! Some of them turned into bigger mobius strips, some of them cut into two linked circles, and one of the bigger ones turned into a square!

Mr. August Mobius (shown here) lived over 150 years ago in Germany. He is best known for his work in topology, but is especially known for creating these two-dimensional surfaces with only one side.

Interestingly, Mobius studied astronomy under Gauss, a famous mathematician in his day, and later studied mathematics under Gauss' teacher, Johann Pfaff.