August Ferdinand Möbius
DOI: 10.1063/PT.5.031354
Today is the birthday of mathematician and astronomer August Ferdinand Möbius, who was born in Schulpforta, Saxony (Germany), in 1790. He studied theoretical astronomy under Carl Gauss at the University of Göttingen before obtaining a professorship at the University of Leipzig in 1816. Möbius’s primary contributions were in geometry, including the development of homogeneous coordinates for projective geometry. But he’s best known for his work in topology. In 1858 he discovered the Möbius strip (below), a narrow sheet given a half twist before its ends are attached together. Topology plays a major role in modern physics, including the research that earned this year’s Nobel Prize.
Date in History: 17 November 1790