Activity Overview
Make a never ending continuous strip of paper. A loop with a single twist in it is called a mobius strip. The Mobius Strip is an actual mathematical phenomenon. School aged children will have great fun trying out this interesting Math and Science experiment and sharing it with their friends. Try to hypothesize what will happen when you create this special paper strip and cut it down the middle.
Here is how it works. When you create a Mobius Strip and cut the strip along the center line yields one long strip with two full twists in it, rather than two separate strips. This happens because the original strip only has one edge which is twice as long as the original strip.
Make sure that you are careful to cut as close to the center as you can. If the strip is cut about a third of the way in from the edge, it creates two strips. One is a thinner Mobius strip, the other is a longer but thin strip with two full twists in it.
Materials Needed
How to Make It
- Cut a piece of paper about 2 inches wide and 11 inches long ( the length of a traditional piece of paper.)
- Twist the paper once.
- Tape the ends together to form a loop.
- Start drawing a line around the strip, you'll end up right back where you started.
- The top and the bottom of the paper strip are the same. The twist in the strip connects what was the top to the bottom, making one big side.
- Start cutting your strip down the middle, as if you are cutting two distinct and equal thinner strips. You end up with a much larger, thinner Mobius Strip, unlike the 2 circles that you would surmise.
