Sunday, December 09, 2007

Education, the Moebius Strip and Second Life (SL)

Today, about one in every 1,000 people on Earth is signed up as a guest/member/visitor to Second Life; however, this number is likely to increase exponentially as the technology becomes more accessible to the masses.  

Traditional institutions like Harvard, M.I.T. and Princeton have already realized SL's vast potential for education and quickly created a presence in this immersive 3D academic world populated with all kinds of teacher and student avatars. And yet the amazing possibilities for those who wish to learn in this new brilliant cybermedium are mostly still untapped.

In the picture (to the right) , for example, is a 3D representation of a Moebius strip that could only be walked through with the help of this immersive resource. The internal continuity of the strip (you can walk and fly through all its internal tunnels and reach the end at your starting point, simply by following your path forward) offers students one of many mysteries of science and space, now within their grasp. 

The model was developed by an MIT student and a high school student on MIT's island in SL, to explore the unusual topological features noticed by Professor Gonzalo Velez-Jahn (Universidad Central de Venezuela) when he first developed this Moebius model in the mid 1970s. 

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Your model of the Moebius strip is very interesting...In my sci-fi mystery novel: "TIME TRIP ON A MOEBIUS STRIP" I have a marine biologist place a giant metal Moebius strip inside of a giant Nautilus shell in an attempt to enter another dimension which he does...He is helped in doing this by the great grand-son of August Ferdinand Moebius, who was the inventer of the Moebius strip...What the marine biologist finds when he enter this other dimension are 16 famous lost people of history as well as an angel, which might also be a goddess of antiquity...If you ever wanted to know what it would like to ride a Moebius strip into anther dimension, then my novel will take you there...I discovered that there are connecting links with the goddess Aphrodite and a rose with 10 of these missing people I have written abnout...I was amazed by this, as I know whoever reads my novel will be likewise...And if you check out my blog at MoebiusTripper.blogspot.com you will see many Moebius strip sculptures and more videos of the Moebius strip, etc...D.Richard Lewis

Anonymous said...

Thank you for your kind comment. You have a very interesting blog - hope you come back soon!

Anonymous said...

who was the inverter of the Moebius strip...What the marine biologist finds when he enter this other dimension are 16 famous lost people of history as well as an angel,

Anonymous said...

Than my novel will take you there...I discovered that there are connecting links with the goddess Aphrodite and a rose with 10 of these missing people I have written about...I was amazed by this, as I know whoever reads my novel will be likewise.

 
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