Klein bottle (nonfiction): Difference between revisions

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== Fiction cross-reference ==
== Fiction cross-reference ==
<gallery mode="traditional">
File:Klein bottles nesting.jpg|Klein bottles nesting, trying to get some sleep.
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* [[Extract of Radium]]
* [[Extract of Radium]]

Revision as of 13:22, 10 June 2016

Klein bottle.

In mathematics (nonfiction), the Klein bottle /ˈklaɪn/ is an example of a non-orientable surface.

Description

A Klein bottle is a two-dimensional manifold against which a system for determining a normal vector cannot be consistently defined.

Informally, it is a one-sided surface which, if traveled upon, could be followed back to the point of origin while flipping the traveler upside down.

Other related non-orientable objects include the Möbius strip and the real projective plane.

Whereas a Möbius strip is a surface with boundary, a Klein bottle has no boundary (for comparison, a sphere is an orientable surface with no boundary).

The Klein bottle was first described in 1882 by the German mathematician Felix Klein.

It may have been originally named the Kleinsche Fläche ("Klein surface") and then misinterpreted as Kleinsche Flasche ("Klein bottle"), which ultimately led to the adoption of this term in the German language as well.

Nonfiction cross-reference

Fiction cross-reference

External links