this is awesome and reminds me of the tiling puzzle from the book Anathem:
http://anathem.wikia.com/wiki/Teglon
or
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penrose_tiling
I would love to have a Penrose tiling puzzle set.
I've played with one of these puzzles in person. They're incredibly cool but pretty difficult. I worked for 20 minutes and was able to tesselate a single piece into a different position.
I might just be bad at it though. On the other hand, the challenge is part of the appeal to me.
So it's many (more than I want to admit :-) years since my Euclidean and Non-Euclidian Geometry class, but isn't this a cross-cap, not a Klein bottle?
The soundtrack appears to be these NASA space recordings that were released in the 80s. They translated probe data into audible frequencies and released them as a CD box set.
How does one map an existing locally-similar pseudorandom pattern like the galaxy image onto a torus, Klein Bottle, or other closed shape? I know that with a generated pattern (e.g. Perlin noise) you automatically get that by taking the value of the noise function at the surface coordinates, but I have no clue about using existing planar images.
Very interesting! With those curved borders however, it's going to be pretty hard to find where each piece fits :)
Could someone who understands the topology of this more fully say - if I had a set of two or more of these, could I solve each separately and put the solved puzzles together into a larger pattern?
This would be even more awesome if the puzzle pieces were curved, so they'd form a Klein bottle when put together.
The coolest part is if you put a few them together you open a non-orientable wormhole and pass into an Alice Universe.
I want to see a jigsaw puzzle that results in a mobius strip.
I don't see how this is based on a Klein Bottle.
A puzzle like this will drive someone with serious OCD nuts. :)
(2016)
I can buy a 1000 piece puzzle for $5 at walmart. Sure it's not nearly as cool as this but 236 pieces for $120? That's outrageous. I'd rather just have my money, thanks.
Would some enterprising HN’er please manufacture these? My wife would love this.
Solid MEH, we bought my mom a jigsaw puzzle with no edges and the image (kittens) flipped on the opposite side in like... 94?
Ok, that is one of the best math + lasercutter = art links that I have seen in a while. And the concept of being able to keep moving the puzzle pieces around is pretty cool. There is also a link to upload your own art work and create your own puzzle, which is what I will be doing for this mother's day. Overall, a pretty cool link.