Mathematics: First-ever image of a flat torus in 3D
Thursday, April 26, 2012 - 06:00
in Astronomy & Space
Just as a terrestrial globe cannot be flattened without distorting the distances, it seemed impossible to visualize abstract mathematical objects called flat tori in ordinary three-dimensional space. However, a French team of mathematicians and computer scientists has succeeded in constructing and visually representing an image of a flat torus in three-dimensional space. This is a smooth fractal, halfway between fractals and ordinary surfaces. The results are published in PNAS.