Up: Orbifolds of Plane Patterns
How to Find a Mirror String
For any two dimensional symmetry group, you can find and describe a
mirror string (if one exists) by the following method:
- Start anywhere on the surface and walk in a straight line until you
crash into a line of mirror symmetry.
- As your head hits the mirror,
you'll see stars, so record this by writing "*" in your notebook.
- Remember what your surroundings look like.
- Follow the mirror along until perhaps you run into an intersecting
mirror line. If this happens, you are at an "n-way kaleidoscopic
point", where n (the "order" of the kaleidoscopic point) is the number
of mirror lines through this point. Record the value of n in your
notebook after the *, then turn right as sharply as you can.
- Continue in this way until you reach the first point that's
identical to the point where we hit the first mirror. Your notebook
will contain a symbol *abc..., where a,b,c,... are the orders of the
kaleidoscopic points (if any) that you met on your walk. You have
just explored a "mirror string of type *abc...".
Up: Orbifolds of Plane Patterns
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Author: Heidi Burgiel
Comments to:
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Created: Dec 7 1995 ---
Last modified: Tue Jun 11 08:45:09 1996
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