The Miracle Of The One Edged Loop

The real world in which we live is an uncanny place. Our wondrous blue planet, Space Ship Earth, gyrates in miracles. And, mind you, some of these miracles are even scientifically reproducible. Take, for example, the case of the Moebius Strip. I am always amazed by the curious properties of this reality-defying band: A one-sided continuous surface; a loop with only one façade and one edge, which makes the invisible visible and tangible. And, lo and behold, in this topological configuration the inside becomes outside and the outside becomes inside.. You can see with your own eyes how a Moebius Strip arises, a geometrical object made from a twisted ribbon in space, one side of a rectangle turned through 180 degrees that then joins the ends on the opposite side. The twist creates a one sided-surface. You can move along to any point on it and return to your original starting point, without crossing an edge. And when you cut along the centre line of this topological wonder, the strip does not fall into two separated parts but remains a single loop, twice as large as the original. And now if you cut down the new Moebius Band it will yield two interlocking loops. It Is not a mirage, nor an optical illusion. The Moebius Strip is surreal, a piece of Non-Euclidean geometry made real, a three dimensional geometric object with only one side that has descended from another world into ours. Transcending geometry, you can view the strip as a wondrous synechdoche for the haunting enigma of existence, and also a curious metaphor of the Self a self-referential strange-loop in the fragile construct of consciousness. You move downwards and upwards, or sideways, through complex labyrinths of tangled hierarchical systems, but whichever direction your mind moves you find yourself coming back to the place where you began.