Zipper Math
Each time I teach my students about the Möbius strip, I bring paper, scissors, and tape to class. The students make Möbius strips, and then I ask them to cut the strips in half along the midline and predict the result.
Then we move to advanced strips. To glue the Möbius strip, you need one turn of the paper. An interesting experiment is to glue strips with two, three, or more turns. In this case, too, it is fun to cut them along the midline and predict the shape of the resulting thingy. My class ends with a big paper mess.
As you might know, I am passionate about recycling. So I have always wanted to buy Möbius strips that can be cut in half and then put back together. I didn’t find them, so I made them myself from zippers. Now I can unzip them along the midline and zip them back together. I hope to have less mess in my future classes. We’ll see.
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Tanya Khovanova's Math Blog » Blog Archive » Martin Gardner’s Surprise:
[…] my effort to reuse Möbius strips, I started making them out of zippers. So Martin’s construction had its destiny zipped. The first picture shows the construction […]
2 March 2022, 1:40 pm