Yin and Yang

George W. Hart


These two enantiomorphous orbs are made of walnut and basswood (7" diameter).  The pair is titled Yin and Yang, but I don't know which is which. The bases are made from stainless steel wire and some kind of stone I picked up in a river once.  They are completely hollow (and very light weight) being made of 1/8 inch thick boards, cut and beveled to meet precisely.


Before making them in wood, I made these models from black and grey textured paper. As the image shows, they are mirror images of each other.  Each has the property that if you switch light and dark regions, they remain unchanged.  And if you promise not to like them any less, I will mention that they also illustrate an interesting theorem that certain topological operators commute. Each is also color-symmetric with itself in the sense that they are congruent to themselves if you switch light and dark. This paper gives some background about the geometry.



copyright 1999, George W. Hart