A description/proof of that quotient of cylinder with antipodal points identified is homeomorphic to Möbius Band
Topics
About: topological space
The table of contents of this article
- Starting Context
- Target Context
- Orientation
- Main Body
- 1: Description
- 2: Proof
- 3: Note 1
- 4: Getting the Head Around the Correspondences
- 5: Note 2
Starting Context
- The reader knows a definition of Möbius band.
- The reader knows a definition of quotient topology on set with respect to map.
- The reader admits the universal property of quotient map.
Target Context
-
The reader will have a description and a proof of the proposition that the quotient of the
cylinder with antipodal points identified is homeomorphic to the Möbius band.
Orientation
There is a list of definitions discussed so far in this site.
There is a list of propositions discussed so far in this site.
Main Body
1: Description
The quotient of the
2: Proof
Let us choose the unique representative of each point of
Let us choose the unique representative of each point of
Let us think of the map,
Let us prove that
Let us prove that
So,
Let us prove that
There are the quotient maps,
Let us define
Let us think of any point,
If
If
If
So,
Let us define
Let us think of any point,
If
If
If
If
If
So,
3: Note 1
A pitfall about the Möbius band or more generally any 2-dimensional topological space embedded in any 3-dimensional Euclidean space is to think that the space has the front and the back, which is not about whether the space is oriented or not but about imagining that there are a point on the front and the corresponding point on the back as 2 different points.
That misunderstanding seems to tend to happen because one imagines a sheet of paper as the space. The sheet of paper has the front and the bottom, and when one draws a curve on the front, the back is blank, and one can draw another curve on the back.
The sheet of paper has the front and the bottom because it is really a 3-dimensional object that has the thickness.
A pitfall when one has a paper model of the Möbius band is to think that when one draws a curve on the Möbius band, the curve returns to the starting point only when the curve returns to the starting point on the sheet of paper; no, when the curve on the sheet goes to the point on the back of the starting point, the curve has already returned to the starting point on the space.
4: Getting the Head Around the Correspondences
We already know the correspondences of points between the Möbius band and the quotient of the cylinder as formulas, but intuitively, the correspondences are not immediately clear. For example, where a circle on the Möbius band is on the quotient of the cylinder?
We think of the quotient of the cylinder in terms of the unique representations of points cited in Proof, which means that we can think of only the
The border of the Möbius band is really a single circle, which seems to correspond to the
According to the formulas of
Where is the central circle on the Möbius band on the cylinder?
It on the Möbius band is
Anyway, according to the formulas of
Where is a non-central circle on the Möbius band on the cylinder?
For example, let us think of the
According to the formulas of
What if the non-central curve is twisted to return to the starting point on the back of the sheet?
Let us think of a line segment that is perpendicular to the central circle, which (the line segment) connects 2 points on the border, on the Möbius band (let us call the line segment 'cross line segment').
For example, it is
According to the formulas of
In order to twist the non-central curve to return to the starting point on the back of the sheet, we can take a half circle of
Let us see that the quotient space of the cylinder is not really oriented.
Let us think of the central circle on the Möbius band. Let us have a basis at the starting point (
Note that for any non-central circle on the Möbius band, the basis returns to the original basis, which is not odd at all, because that amounts to returning to the starting point on the front on the paper sheet. In order to close the non-central curve on the back on the paper sheet, the curve has to be twisted, which means that the curve crosses the
5: Note 2
When we think of any curve that connects a point on the border to another point on the border, there are 2 types: 1) the curve encloses some points; 2) the curve encloses no point. "enclose" means that some 2 points on the space cannot be path-connected with a path that does not cross the curve.
This is an example that encloses some points.
Note that that is not because the 2 points are on the same
This is an example that encloses no point.
That seems obvious for the straightforward (non-Möbius) band. The straightforward band has 2 borders, and an intuition is that a curve that connects 2 points on the same border encloses some points while a curve that connects 2 points on the different borders encloses no point.
But the Möbius band has only 1 border and curves have no distinction in that point, but still, some curves enclose some points and the other curves enclose no point.