Surfaces34 of 113
Boy’s surface
Werner Boy, 1901
Hilbert asked his student Werner Boy to prove the projective plane could not sit smoothly in space. Boy found that it could, with three lobes around a triple point and no pinches. This drawing uses a closed-form parametrization in sines and cosines.
z = 3 cos²v / (2 − √2 sin 3u sin 2v)
On mathcurve.com as Surface de Boy
Drawn as
Elsewhere
1Work the library cites and does not hold: in copyright, never released as a file, or not a file at all. The cited shelf
- 1991
A steel model of Boy’s surface, installed outside the institute on 28 January 1991. Its strips follow a polar grid under the parametrization of Robert Bryant and Rob Kusner.
Not yet checkedSuggested by an AI model, 2026-10-08
An AI reviewer had doubts, 2026-10-09: The holder's page says the model was "constructed and donated by Mercedes-Benz in January 1991", which gives only the month, so the note's specific date of 28 January is not borne out. The steel strips and the Bryant and Kusner polar grid are supported.