The Mobius strip was discovered by two scientists at once: the German mathematician August Mobius, and also Johann Listing in 1858. To make her model, you need to take a long paper strip, connect its ends, before turning one of them over.
The main feature of the Mobius strip is that it has only one side. This wonderful property has served as a pretext for the plots of many science fiction stories. One of them described an incident that occurred in the New York subway, where a whole train got lost in time, which set off on a journey enclosed in a Mobius strip. In the story of another writer Arthur Clarke "The Wall of Darkness", the protagonist travels around the planet, which is bent in the form of a Mobius strip.
In addition to science fiction stories, the Moebius strip is found in various areas of science and art. This symbol has inspired artists and sculptors to create amazing creations. Escher was one of the artists who especially loved him and devoted several lithographs to this mathematical object. One of them depicts ants crawling on the surface of the Mobius strip.
The Mobius strip is used in many inventions resulting from careful study of the properties of a one-sided surface. Its shape is repeated by abrasive belts for sharpening tools, belt transmission, ink ribbon in printing devices.
The tape, which is located in the cassette like a Mobius tape, will play twice as long. Several decades ago, this unusual tape found a new use - it turned into an amazing spring. As you know, a conventional charged spring always works in the opposite direction. Using the Mobius discovery made it possible to create a spring that does not change the direction of operation. A similar mechanism finds its application in the device of the steering wheel stabilizer, providing a return to the initial position of the steering wheel. This is important when there is no feedback between the controlled elements and the steering wheel.
The shape of the Mobius strip was also used in the construction of the belt conveyor. This allowed him to work much longer, since in this case the entire surface of the tape was worn out evenly.
There is a hypothesis that the DNA helix also has a fragment of the Mobius strip, and therefore the genetic code is difficult to perceive and decipher. In addition, such a structure logically explains the cause of biological death - a spiral that closes in on itself leads to self-destruction.
Physicists claim that all optical laws are based on the Mobius strip principle. For example, a reflection in a mirror is a kind of transference in time, since a person sees his mirror double in front of him. Mathematicians compare the Mobius strip with the infinity sign.
Philosophers and astronomers, historians and psychologists - all of them use the well-known Moebius strip in their hypotheses. For example, Albert Einstein believed that the universe is closed in the form of a ring, like the Mobius strip, and philosophers build whole theories based on the amazing properties of this mathematical object.
