sided

It's a popular misconception that what distinguishes a Mobius strip is that it is "infinite," that it is "never-ending." A Mobius strip is no more never-ending than a loop of paper made without a half-twist is never-ending.

If you take a pencil to one-side of a regular loop and trace a line around, it will meet its end. You can keep going around and around the loop, but the line will pass its beginning every time. You will never run out of loop, but that doesn't mean it's infinite in length.

A Mobius strip is exactly the same. It's more difficult to get that pencil around the Klein bottle - the half-twist - but you will come again to the beginning of your line.

What distinguishes a Mobius strip from its cousin is that it only has one side. You can trace your line around a conventional loop all you like - but the inner side of the strip will remain untouched. Trace your way around a Mobius strip once, and you will cover what appear to be both sides - but if inside and outside are continuous, what you have yourself is a one-sided object.

What brought this to mind is a "Briefly Noted" review in The New Yorker, April 5, 2010, of Gina Welch's book In the Land of Believers. Welch, who grew up an atheist in California, goes to graduate school in Virginia and becomes a member of Jerry Falwell's Thomas Road Baptist Church. Her intentions are secular, but she finds herself moved by the human touch within the church (shades of Donna Minkowitz's 1998 book Ferocious Romance).

Here I quote The New Yorker quoting Welch: "Unlike human love, she realizes, God love is a 'Mobius strip... calm and complete, unflinching in the face of anything you could reveal about yourself.'"

No, I thought, another misuse of the Mobius concept. It would not indicate the infinite love of God in the face of all and anything. It would actually describe the love of God as one-sided no matter how far you travel. And Jerry Falwell's God seems to me one who demands one way, one path, one side - not a universal embracing.

On second consideration of the Welch quote, it occurred to me that the one-sided aspect of the Mobius strip might be what she intended after all - there is no dimension but God's dimension, you are of it even if you think you are on another side, it transcends your ordinary conception of reality.

I don't know which she means, but for my purposes I don't need to know. My interest is in presenting and knowing the Mobius loop properly. Does that mean Welch and I are on different sides of a loop, never touching? Or does it put us on a Mobius plane, co-existent?