Questions tagged [mobius-band]

The Möbius band or Möbius strip is a surface with only one side and only one boundary. The Möbius strip has the mathematical property of being non-orientable. It is named after the German mathematician August Ferdinand Möbius.

The Möbius band or Möbius strip is a surface with only one side and only one boundary (a simple closed curve which means it is homeomorphic to a circle). The Möbius strip has the mathematical property of being non-orientable. It is named after the German mathematician August Ferdinand Möbius. The Euler characteristic of the Möbias strip is zero.

175 questions
93
votes
4 answers

Why is the Möbius strip not orientable?

I am trying to understand the notion of an orientable manifold. Let M be a smooth n-manifold. We say that M is orientable if and only if there exists an atlas $A = \{(U_{\alpha}, \phi_{\alpha})\}$ such that $\textrm{det}(J(\phi_{\alpha} \circ…
59
votes
18 answers

Is it possible to determine if you were on a Möbius strip?

I understand that if you were to walk on the surface of a Möbius strip you would have the same perspective as if you walked on the outer surface of a cylinder. However, would it be possible for someone to determine whether they were on a Möbius…
24
votes
5 answers

Retraction of the Möbius strip to its boundary

Prove that there is no retraction (i.e. continuous function constant on the codomain) $r: M \rightarrow S^1 = \partial M$ where $M$ is the Möbius strip. I've tried to find a contradiction using $r_*$ homomorphism between the fundamental groups, but…
user32847
23
votes
3 answers

Cutting a Möbius strip down the middle

Why does the result of cutting a Möbius strip down the middle lengthwise have two full twists in it? I can account for one full twist--the identification of the top left corner with the bottom right is a half twist; similarly, the top right corner…
21
votes
4 answers

Klein bottle as two Möbius strips.

I read that glueing together two Möbius strips along their edges creates a surface that is equivalent to the so-called Klein bottle. The Möbius strip comes in two versions that are mirrored versions of each other (wrt the chirality of the half-turn…
20
votes
3 answers

Is there a Möbius torus?

Does the concept of a Möbius torus make sense: taking a cylinder (instead of a rectangle as in the case of the Möbius strip ) and twisting it before joining its ends? Or will the resulting twisted torus be indistinguishable from the normal torus in…
18
votes
3 answers

How to calculate the homology groups of the Möbius strip?

How does one calculate the homology groups of the Möbius strip? I'm thinking of two methods. Use cellular homology. I tried to draw a delta-complex structure of the Möbius strip but I'm not sure if I'm right? I basically have a rectangle with…
15
votes
1 answer

In how many dimensions is the full-twisted "Mobius" band isotopic to the cylinder?

There is a question on this site about the distinctions between the full-twisted Mobius band and the cylinder, but I would like to ask something different, so I start a new question. Let us call $C$ the standard cylinder embedded in $\mathbb{R}^3$,…
Kaius
  • 195
11
votes
2 answers

Which space do we obtain if we take a Möbius strip and identify its boundary circle to a point?

I know that the boundary circle of a Möbius strip is actually formed by the horizontal sides of $[0 ,1] \times [0,1]$ .If we identify all the points of the 1st horizontal side to a single point and do the same for the second horizontal side we get a…
11
votes
2 answers

Klein-bottle and Möbius-strip together with a homeomorphism

Consider the Klein bottle (this can be done by making a quotient space). I want to give a proof of the following statement: The Klein Bottle is homeomorphic to the union of two copies of a Möbius strip joined by a homeomorphism along their…
11
votes
1 answer

Topologically distinguishing Mobius Strips based on the number of half-twists

We can distinguish between a (closed) Mobius strip and 'regular' (untwisted) strip by examining the set of points which have no neighborhood homeomorphic to a disk (intuitively, the 'boundary' of the strip). For a Mobius strip, this set is…
user88319
9
votes
1 answer

Understanding Mobius bundle.

I'm trying to solve the following question: Consider the vector bundle $$E:= [0,1] \times \mathbb{R}/\sim \quad \to S^1$$ where $\sim$ is the equivalence rleation $(0,t) \sim (1,-t)$ for all $t \in \mathbb{R}$ . Does there exist a section of $E$…
user661541
9
votes
1 answer

Showing that $\mathbb S^1$ is a deformation retract of the Mobius strip, rigorously.

Intuitively, I can see why this is. I've found a few threads about this, but they only provide, for example, a deformation retraction of $I \times I$ to its diagonal $D = \{ (x,x) \in I \times I \}$, with no further explanation. It's not clear to me…
8
votes
1 answer

Klein bottle homeomorphic to union of Möbius strip

I'm having trouble showing that the Klein bottle defined as a quotient space of $I^2$ with relation $(x,-1)R(x,1)$ and $(-1,y)R(1,-y)$ is Hausdorff and that it can be expressed as $X\cup Y$ where $X,Y$ are homeomorphic to the Möbius strip and $X\cap…
user62931
  • 385
8
votes
3 answers

How do Flatlanders represent Möbius strips?

There are 3D representations of Klein bottles that give people in our 3D universe a pretty good idea of how one is constructed: We can sort of see how this thing needs to be 'twisted' in the fourth dimension. But how do Flatlanders create 2D…
1
2 3
…
11 12