Special Topics:Complex Analysis

The picture shows an intermediate step in the process of stretching a tiny, thin, flat, square sheet of rubber onto the surface of a globe (first placing it near the north pole, and then stretching it down around the globe until all the edges are near the south pole). The cloverleaf-shaped hole is the part of the sphere not covered by the square.

How to make it: This picture is derived from the application /u/burchard/Apps/PlaneToSphere.app which demonstrates the formation of bubbling-off singularities in the harmonic map heat flow.

Image created: Oct 5, 1992

Copyright © Oct 5, 1992 by The Geometry Center, University of Minnesota. All rights reserved.
For permission to use this image, contact permission@geom.umn.edu.

External viewing: small (100x100 3k gif), medium (500x401 23k gif), or original size (447x358 83k tiff).

Comments to: webmaster@geom.umn.edu
Created: Thu Jun 25 15:09:37 CDT 1998 --- Last modified: Thu Jun 25 15:09:37 CDT 1998