A Twist in Time; Honorable Mention (January 2002)

Bathsheba Grossman, Dan Schwalbe, Stan Wagon, John Bruning.

While one snowflake can’t be twisted, a billion of them can. Our smoothly turning construction is a tour through the three dimensions we inhabit: the curves widen, twist, and branch to form an intricate surface. How many independent edges can you find?

Matthias Weber (Indiana University) worked out the topology of the 2-dimensional surface represented by the sculpture: it is nonorientable, and is a Klein bottle with one handle added and two disks removed. Its genus is 1. The genus of the 3-dimensional orientable closed surface is 5.

Removing the supports in the final few minutes is always both exciting and terrifying.
Success!
Rob Nachtwey (team assistant), Dan Schwalbe, Stan Wagon, Bathsheba Grossman, John Bruning.