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And Now, We Present the Mobius Doughnut

Previously: Coolest Thing We've Ever Seen: The Möbius Bagel

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[Photos: Carey Jones]

We're forever grateful to professor and artist George Hart for bringing the chain-link bagel into our lives. What could possibly, possibly be cooler than a Möbius Bagel?

Answer: The Möbius Doughnut.

Why should the bagel get all the geometric jollies? A doughnut can contort itself in any way a bagel can. And with a bigger hole to revolve around, it's even easier to pull apart the halves! So without further ado: the architecture of a slightly sweeter Möbius.

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Before.

We stopped by the Donut Pub to pick up a few honey glazed doughnuts—figuring the lighter and fluffier, the better.

The delicate fried shell came apart much more easily than the bagel's, making it difficult to achieve the proper convoluted Möbius knife swirl without the doughnut falling apart.

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After! (Rotation one.)

But once we did, the halves slid through each other easily—making its architecture that much clearer.

Yes, we know: one doesn't usually need to cut a doughnut in half. (And attempting glazed Möbius dissection leads to very sticky fingers.) But we dare you to come up with a better office kitchen trick.

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Rotation two!

Not recommended for cake doughnuts. (Or jelly doughnuts, for that matter.)

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Rotation three!

Only possible improvement: the bacon Möbius doughnut?

Related:
Coolest Thing We've Ever Seen: Mobius Strip Bagel

6 Comments:

The bacon Möbius doughnut should immediately be created and photographed.

The doughnut would be a good candidate for working on a one-strip mobius cut, since it does not need the extra surface area for cream cheese. Note that the professor left this as an Exercise on the original post, along with the calc and topo problems.

@malecki: If you can do it, we'll publish it.

Except, much like the bagel, this isn't a mobius. The CUT may be a mobius, but the end food item is two interlocking rings. You can't trace it as one infinite loop, the true mark of a mobius.

@etherMaiden: Agreed. And I'm embarrassed to have emailed this to a couple of mathematician friends before I traced it better to see that. It's clear in the donut picture neither is a mobius - not so clear in the bagel photo. (I had thought it was two interlinking mobius strips) The problem is that the surface is too round to define a mobius strip.

I made, and ate, a real, ie. one cut, one edge, bacon Möbius bagel for my breakfast on Saturday, it was very nice :D
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bESTWcs7z_4

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