Riding the Subway with Moebius

Having spent part of my weekend riding the subway system in Boston - the T, as it is known (if not exactly loved) by locals - I couldn't help thinking of a favorite short story called "A Subway Named Moebius," by A. J. Deutsch, in which a Boston subway train disappears, along with its passengers.

It's not a mystery, really - it's more science fiction, or, to be precise, mathematical fiction: the subway disappears because the enormous complexity of the Boston subway system of interlinking tunnels essentially allows one of the trains to suddenly enter a different dimension. It's one story in a brilliant collection called "Fantasia Mathematica," edited by Clifton Fadiman, which includes a lot of stories and some poems all based on mathematics.

In the case of "A Subway Named Moebius," it's based on the peculiarities of that branch of math called topology, and is most commonly explained to people by demonstrating a Moebius strip - a continuous loop which has been twisted and fastened to itself; while at any point, it has two sides and two edges, in fact the loop has only a single edge and a single side. If that confuses you, here's what Wikipedia has to say about it, complete with an illustration showing a Moebius strip, and good luck: you're in much the same position as those fictional Boston subway officials in the story who are trying to figure out what happened to their missing train and some 350 passengers.

At any rate, riding on the Red Line from Cambridge into Boston, I remembered the story. But the train arrived at South Station on schedule and, so far as I could tell, without passing into the fourth dimension. So I'll have to rely on the story's solution to the mystery.

Comments

[D. Richard Lewis]

Having read the short story: "A Subway Named Moebius," I thought you would like to
know about my sci-fi mystery novel: "TIME TRIP ON A MOEBIUS STRIP." You can check out my novel and a sample page at my blog: http://moebiustripper.blogspot.com
There you will also see many Moebius strips made into furniture, jewelry, sculptures, etc, as well as my very interesting 130 web-site list...

[mike gray]

Amazing coincidence, Les: I'm still discovering stuff that miraculously survived my move three years ago, and one of them just happens to be Fadiman's excellent book. Go figure.

—Mike

[Les Blatt]

I first came across this book in high school, and it has been a favorite ever since. I'm delighted that it is still in print.