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Get an Acme Klein Bottle

kleinbottle.com

41–50 of 84 posts

Re: Get an Acme Klein Bottle

#41

Ok, I'll bite. Zero volume, one sided, non-orientable, what is this?

Are you familiar with a mobius strip? A ribbon with a twist in it produces a one-sided band. A klein bottle is essentially like a levelling-up of that by a dimension. It is a 4D surface which is, just like the mobius strip, single-sided. If you were 4th dimensional, you could trade from the 'outside' to the 'inside' and back without crossing any boundary. Of course, the klein bottles you can buy or see renderings of are 3D embeddings of this, so they have to include a bit of self-intersection that wouldn't actually occur in the real 4D version.

Re: Get an Acme Klein Bottle

#42
One day in grad school, some of us decided we needed to do a road trip to Cliff Stoll’s house to pick up some non orientable surfaces. Cliff is one of the most friendly and gracious people I have ever had the good fortune of meeting. I think we chatted about everything from electromagnetics to astronomy to computer security in his backyard.

Re: Get an Acme Klein Bottle

#45

I ordered one of these for my dad for Christmas one year, and as we live in the Bay Area, I opted to just pick it up from Cliff Stoll’s house. Guy was one of the nicest people I’ve ever met—introduced me to his family and gave me a tour of his workshop, including the robo-car he uses to retrieve the bottles from his crawl space. My dad got a kick out of the bottle but has probably since forgotten about it, so I think…

I wish I lived in the area, I would love to meet Mr. Stoll. I only recently watched The Cuckoo's Egg, which is from the 1980s and which he is the star of. A tremendously interesting story for anyone unfamiliar with it who uses this site I am sure, he was basically the first person to really track international hackers and did so at a time when law enforcement didn't even know if any laws had been broken despite milit…

It's funny, I've read "The Cuckoo's Egg," Clifford Stoll's book, probably twenty times now. I had no idea there was a documentary about it (The KGB, The Computer, and Me - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0308449/) until just now so thanks.

Re: Get an Acme Klein Bottle

#46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're not made by him anymore. A glassblower makes them. But he does the rest.

To learn about the operation, watch the Numberphile video, “The man with 1,000 Klein Bottles UNDER his house” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-k3mVnRlQLU

With an inventory robot Amazon would be proud of.

Re: Get an Acme Klein Bottle

#47
I've ordered two bottles on different occasions. Cliff Stoll is a really awesome guy down to the personalized notes he sneaks into each packages.

I'm glad people like Cliff exist in the world, such a wonderful person.

Re: Get an Acme Klein Bottle

#48

I ordered one of these for my dad for Christmas one year, and as we live in the Bay Area, I opted to just pick it up from Cliff Stoll’s house. Guy was one of the nicest people I’ve ever met—introduced me to his family and gave me a tour of his workshop, including the robo-car he uses to retrieve the bottles from his crawl space. My dad got a kick out of the bottle but has probably since forgotten about it, so I think…

This is exactly why I love the Bay Area so much - the people.
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