Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin
Möbius Strips Defy a Link with Infinity (quantamagazine.org)
25 points by Pharmakon on Feb 21, 2019 | hide | past | favorite | 5 comments


The subtitle is in clear contradiction with the paper, the first sentence of which claims that this was proven for 3 dimensions in 1962.


It doesn't seem to contradict it in my reading it. (Basically it refuses to be packed infinitely in tame [1962] and now wild embeddings])


Totally different thing, but reminds me of the Hopf Fibration, which you should really look up if you never have before.


I'm not sure I'm grasping the significance of this, is there an article or video you'd recommend?


Definitely this one! https://youtu.be/10sDqSUjXHc

Think about how you could fill a 2D plane with infinite parallel lines, one for every single point on a real line. Imagine, for example, running vertical lines through every point on the x-axis, how this would fill the entire plane.

The Hopf Fibration is similar. It's a way of filling all of the space on the surface of a 3-sphere (which locally feels like 3D Euclidean space) with interlocking circles. Each of these circles can be mapped a point on an ordinary sphere.

Thinking of it in the other direction: for every point on the surface of an ordinary (2-)sphere, you can assign a circle on the surface of a 3-sphere. By taking into consideration all of the points on the 2-sphere, and all of the circles they represent, you can fill the entire surface of the 3-sphere with these interlocking circles!




Consider applying for YC's Winter 2026 batch! Applications are open till Nov 10

Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: