Ayelet Lindenstrauss Larsen

Associate Professor of Mathematics
Indiana University
Bloomington IN

The idea for this piece came from the standard "mathematical magic" trick of showing how you can cut a Möbius band through the middle and not separate it. The single edge of the Möbius band made it possible to connect the two ends of the rainbow into a single color wheel, while keeping pairs of complementary colors side by side to set each other off.

540º
1" x 8" x 8"
Cotton, silk, dissolvable muslin.
2003

This Möbius band is twisted three times, each time by 180 degrees, before its short sides are attached to each other. Topologically, it is the same as the usual Möbius band where the band is twisted only once before attaching the short sides to each other; it is just embedded in 3-space in a different way. The edge of a Möbius band consists of one long circle. If you follow the edge of this Möbius band, you will go through the colors of the rainbow, from red to purple, and then transition to red through red-purple and begin the cycle again.