Wine Klein

A Klein bottle is a non-orientable surface, where there is no distinction between inside and outside. So unlike a sphere, where you cannot pass from the outside to the inside without passing through the surface, in a Klein bottle you can do just that. If you were very small, an ant say, you could start at any point, and keep crawling until you reached the other side of the surface, without passing through any surfaces, and without needing to cross any edges.

It was first described by the German mathematician Felix Klein in 1882, and it is related to the Möbius strip. Essentially he combined two Möbius surfaces, a left and a right, to form a single surfaced 3 dimensional object. Although in fact a Klein Bottle is really a four dimensional object, that is immersed in three dimensions.

Klein bottles are sometimes made by the glassblowing department in a university, to show off their skills, and maybe to make a leaving present for a retiring Maths professor! They are not easy to make.

Our Klein bottles are made for us by a glassblower in Scotland, and are unique to Grand Illusions. Our Klein bottle sits on a base which is like the bottom of a wine glass, hence our name for this is a Wine Klein! It stands about 13cm high.

Since these are hand made, no two are exactly the same.

The Science Museum in London has a very unusual exhibit - a triple Klein bottle, one inside the other.



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