yAtlas

Studio · From Symmetry

The belt trick

Keep turning the cube the same way: how far must it turn before every belt is straight again?

Composing the first frame…

A cube is tied to six walls by six belts. Drag “cube turned”, or press play, and it keeps turning the same way about the vertical axis while the belts follow in a motion chosen for them, never passing through one another. At 360° the cube is back where it began, but the belts are wound around it; keep turning the same way and at 720° all six are straight again. The corner measures the narrowest gap between the surfaces of any two belts, edges and all rather than centre lines, and it never reaches 0. Drag “turn the view” to look from another side.