Concept
Möbius strip
Related concepts (25)
Three utilities problem
The classical mathematical puzzle known as the three utilities problem or sometimes water, gas and electricity asks for non-crossing connections to be drawn between three houses and three utility companies in the plane. When posing it in the early 20th century, Henry Dudeney wrote that it was already an old problem. It is an impossible puzzle: it is not possible to connect all nine lines without crossing. Versions of the problem on nonplanar surfaces such as a torus or Möbius strip, or that allow connections to pass through other houses or utilities, can be solved.
Ambient isotopy
In the mathematical subject of topology, an ambient isotopy, also called an h-isotopy, is a kind of continuous distortion of an ambient space, for example a manifold, taking a submanifold to another submanifold. For example in knot theory, one considers two knots the same if one can distort one knot into the other without breaking it. Such a distortion is an example of an ambient isotopy. More precisely, let and be manifolds and and be embeddings of in .
Blowing up
In mathematics, blowing up or blowup is a type of geometric transformation which replaces a subspace of a given space with all the directions pointing out of that subspace. For example, the blowup of a point in a plane replaces the point with the projectivized tangent space at that point. The metaphor is that of zooming in on a photograph to enlarge part of the picture, rather than referring to an explosion. Blowups are the most fundamental transformation in birational geometry, because every birational morphism between projective varieties is a blowup.
Mapping class group
In mathematics, in the subfield of geometric topology, the mapping class group is an important algebraic invariant of a topological space. Briefly, the mapping class group is a certain discrete group corresponding to symmetries of the space. Consider a topological space, that is, a space with some notion of closeness between points in the space. We can consider the set of homeomorphisms from the space into itself, that is, continuous maps with continuous inverses: functions which stretch and deform the space continuously without breaking or gluing the space.
Mathematics and art
Mathematics and art are related in a variety of ways. Mathematics has itself been described as an art motivated by beauty. Mathematics can be discerned in arts such as music, dance, painting, architecture, sculpture, and textiles. This article focuses, however, on mathematics in the visual arts. Mathematics and art have a long historical relationship. Artists have used mathematics since the 4th century BC when the Greek sculptor Polykleitos wrote his Canon, prescribing proportions conjectured to have been based on the ratio 1: for the ideal male nude.