Remember the first time you saw a Möbius strip (the ring-shaped surface with only one side) and it felt like your world had been turned upside down? The hexaflexagon tends to have a similar effect. Only more so.
In this, her latest video, fast-thinking, faster-talking YouTube-maths-wizard Vi Hart presents us with the topologically fascinating hexaflexagon. First discovered in the 1930s by a daydreaming student named Arthur H. Stone, flexagons have attracted the curiosity of great scientists for decades, including Stone’s friend and colleague Richard Feynman. Here, the ever-capable Hart introduces the folding, pinching, rotating, multifaceted geometric oddity with her signature brand of rapid-fire wit and exposition. She even shows you how to make your own.
https://gizmodo.com/watch-a-series-of-seven-brilliant-lectures-by-richard-f-5894600
Seeing as Hart has dubbed October “The Month of the Flexagon,” it sounds like we can look forward to a few more similarly themed videos in the weeks ahead. We’ll keep you posted.
[Vi Hart]
