MATHEMATICS IN

'DEPENDENT BEINGS'

The Möbius Band is made up of a thin strip (think of a strip of paper). But what if we thickened this strip so that it had a square cross section? If this were to happen then the Möbius Band becomes John Robinson's DEPENDENT BEINGS, which he made from a fibre bundle with a square fibre.

We have produced a rotating model of this sculpture by gluing two twisted Bands together (one gold, one black). These are created from two offset lines (as we have shown in the "How we did the pictures" section).

These two lines are rotated through 360 degrees in their plane about the origin while the origin itself follows the path of a circle twice. Thus the resulting two twisted bands are not Möbius bands.

In GEOMVIEW it is then possible to combine these two pictures and rotate the result. Using "screen grabs" we can create a series of pictures, and so go on to produce a multiple gif file giving the moving picture effect below.


THE MATHEMATICAL THEMES


©Mathematics and Knots/Edition Limitee 1996
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