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Journal of Shin Buddhism
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Rolling off Fortunatus' pursed lips
Life's a pointed balance
A whole within a whole
Where the falling-through all comes together
There you're on top of the ride
Coaster of the inward outing
Messenger in a Klein bottle broadcast
Convoluted in translucent calling
But clearly on air where his name comes to ground
[NB Fortunatus was a European folkloric hero rescued from destitution by the goddess Fortuna, who gave him a magical money purse which could never be emptied.
In one of his stories (ie 'Sylvie and Bruno Concluded'), Lewis Carroll, the paradox-loving mathematician and fantastical author of 'Alice in Wonderland', describes the stitching together of a real version of Fortunatus' purse with inner and outer surfaces that are continuous and indistinguishable, so that: "Whatever is inside that Purse, is outside it; and whatever is outside it, is inside it. So you have all the wealth of the world in that leetle Purse!".
A Klein bottle (named after German mathematician Felix Klein) is similarly a geometric 'container' of continuous three-dimensional space, without an inside or outside, formed by inserting the small open end of a tapered tube through the side of the tube and making it contiguous with the larger open end.]
(© Copyright Gregg Heathcote, 26 July 2001)
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