Mbius Strip (Paperback)

The Mbius strip or Mbius band is a surface with only one side and only one boundary component. The Mbius strip has the mathematical property of being non-orientable. It is also a ruled surface. It was discovered independently by the German mathematicians August Ferdinand Mbius and Johann Benedict Listing in 1858. The shape of the Mbius Strip probably dates to ancient times. An Alexandrian manuscript of early Alchemical diagrams contains an illustration with the visual proportions of the Mbius Strip. This image, on a page titled 'The Chrysopoeia of Cleopatra, has the appearance of an Ouroboros, and is referred to as the 'One, All'. A model can easily be created by taking a paper strip and giving it a half-twist, and then joining the ends of the strip together to form a loop. In Euclidean space there are in fact two types of Mbius strips depending on the direction of the half-twist: clockwise and counterclockwise. The Mbius strip is therefore chiral, which is to say that it has "handedness" (as in right-handed or left-handed).