19/12/2017 Menger sponge - Wikipedia

Menger sponge
In mathematics, the Menger sponge (also known as the
Menger universal curve) is a fractal curve. It is a three-
dimensional generalization of the Cantor set and Sierpinski
carpet, though it is slightly different from a Sierpinski
sponge. It was first described by Karl Menger in 1926, in his
studies of the concept of topological dimension.[1][2]

Contents
Construction
Properties Image 1: An illustration of M4, the sponge after four
Formal definition iterations of the construction process.
MegaMenger
Similar fractals
Jerusalem cube
Others
See also
References
Further reading
External links

Construction
The construction of a Menger sponge can be described as follows:

1. Begin with a cube (Image 2 - first from left).

2. Divide every face of the cube into 9 squares, like a Rubik's Cube. This
will sub-divide the cube into 27 smaller cubes.
3. Remove the smaller cube in the middle of each face, and remove the
smaller cube in the very center of the larger cube, leaving 20 smaller
cubes (Image 2 - second from left). This is a level-1 Menger sponge
(resembling a Void Cube).
4. Repeat steps 2 and 3 for each of the remaining smaller cubes, and
continue to iterate ad infinitum.
The second iteration gives a level-2 sponge (Image 2 - third from left), the
third iteration gives a level-3 sponge (Image 2 - 4th from left), and so on.
The Menger sponge itself is the limit of this process after an infinite
number of iterations.

Image 3: A sculptural representation

of iterations 0 (bottom) to 3 (top).

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Image 2: An illustration of the iterative construction of a Menger sponge up to M3,

the third iteration.

Properties
The nth stage of the Menger sponge, Mn, is made up of 20n smaller
cubes, each with a side length of (1/3)n. The total volume of Mn is thus
(20/27)n. The total surface area of Mn is given by the expression
2(20/9)n + 4(8/9)n.[3][4] Therefore the construction's volume
approaches zero while its surface area increases without bound. Yet
any chosen surface in the construction will be thoroughly punctured
as the construction continues, so that the limit is neither a solid nor a
surface; it has a topological dimension of 1 and is accordingly
identified as a curve.

Each face of the construction becomes a Sierpinski carpet, and the

intersection of the sponge with any diagonal of the cube or any Menger sponge animation through (4)
midline of the faces is a Cantor set. The cross section of the sponge recursion steps.
through its centroid and perpendicular to a space diagonal is a regular
hexagon punctured with hexagrams arranged in six-fold symmetry.[5]

The sponge's Hausdorff dimension is log 20

log 3
≅ 2.727. The Lebesgue
covering dimension of the Menger sponge is one, the same as any curve.
Menger showed, in the 1926 construction, that the sponge is a universal
curve, in that every curve is homeomorphic to a subset of the Menger
sponge, where a curve means any compact metric space of Lebesgue
covering dimension one; this includes trees and graphs with an arbitrary
countable number of edges, vertices and closed loops, connected in
arbitrary ways. In a similar way, the Sierpinski carpet is a universal curve
for all curves that can be drawn on the two-dimensional plane. The Menger
sponge constructed in three dimensions extends this idea to graphs that
are not planar, and might be embedded in any number of dimensions. True view of the cross-section of a
level-4 Menger sponge through its
The Menger sponge is a closed set; since it is also bounded, the Heine– centroid and perpendicular to a
space diagonal. In
Borel theorem implies that it is compact. It has Lebesgue measure 0.
this interactive SVG, the cross-
Because it contains continuous paths, it is an uncountable set.
sections are true-view and to scale.

Formal definition
Formally, a Menger sponge can be defined as follows:

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where M0 is the unit cube and

MegaMenger
MegaMenger is a project aiming to build the largest fractal model,
pioneered by Matt Parker of Queen Mary University of London and Laura
Taalman of James Madison University. Each small cube is made from 6
interlocking folded business cards, giving a total of 960 000 for a level-four
sponge. The outer surfaces are then covered with paper or cardboard
panels printed with a Sierpinski carpet design to be more aesthetically
pleasing.[6] In 2014, twenty level-three Menger sponges were constructed,
which combined would form a distributed level-four Menger sponge.[7]
A model of a tetrix viewed through
the centre of the Cambridge Level-3
Similar fractals MegaMenger at the 2015
Cambridge Science Festival

Jerusalem cube

A Jerusalem cube is a fractal

object described by Eric Baird
in 2011. It is created by
recursively drilling Greek cross-
shaped holes into a cube.[8][9]
The name comes from a face of
the cube resembling a One of the MegaMengers, at the
Jerusalem cross pattern. University of Bath

The construction of the

Third iteration Jerusalem cube Jerusalem cube can be described as follows:

1. Start with a cube.

2. Cut a cross through each side of the cube, leaving eight cubes (of rank +1)
at the corners of the original cube, as well as twelve smaller cubes (of rank
+2) centered on the edges of the original cube between cubes of rank +1.
3. Repeat the process on the cubes of rank 1 and 2.
Each iteration adds eight cubes of rank one and twelve cubes of rank two, a
twenty-fold increase. (Similar to the Menger sponge but with two different-
sized cubes.) Iterating an infinite number of times results in the Jerusalem
cube.

3D-printed model Jerusalem cube

Others
A Mosely snowflake is a cube-based fractal with corners recursively removed.[10]
A tetrix is a tetrahedron-based fractal made from four smaller copies, arranged in a tetrahedron.[11]

See also
Apollonian gasket
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Cantor cube
Koch snowflake
Sierpiński tetrahedron
Sierpiński triangle
Sierpiński sponge
List of fractals by Hausdorff dimension

References
1. Menger, Karl (1928), Dimensionstheorie, B.G Teubner Publishers
2. Menger, Karl (1926), "Allgemeine Räume und Cartesische
Räume. I.", Communications to the Amsterdam Academy of
Sciences. English translation reprinted in Edgar, Gerald A., ed.
(2004), Classics on fractals, Studies in Nonlinearity, Westview
Press. Advanced Book Program, Boulder, CO, ISBN 978-0-8133-
4153-8, MR 2049443 (https://www.ams.org/mathscinet-getitem? Sierpinski-Menger snowflake. Eight
mr=2049443) corner cubes and the one central cube
3. Wolfram Demonstrations Project, Volume and Surface Area of are kept each time at the lower and lower
the Menger Sponge (http://demonstrations.wolfram.com/VolumeA recursion steps. This peculiar three
ndSurfaceAreaOfTheMengerSponge/) dimensional fractal has the Hausdorff
dimension of the natively two dimensional
4. University of British Columbia Science and Mathematics
object like the plane i.e. log 9
log 3
=2
Education Research Group, Mathematics Geometry: Menger
Sponge (http://scienceres-edcp-educ.sites.olt.ubc.ca/files/2012/0
8/sec_math_geometry_menger.ppt)
5. Chang, Kenneth (27 June 2011). "The Mystery of the Menger
Sponge" (http://nytimes.com/2011/06/28/science/28math-menger.
html). Retrieved 8 May 2017 – via NYTimes.com.
6. Tim Chartier. "A Million Business Cards Present a Math
Challenge" (http://huffingtonpost.com/tim-chartier/a-million-busine
ss-cards_b_6128880.html). Retrieved 2015-04-07.
7. "MegaMenger" (http://www.megamenger.com/). Retrieved
2015-02-15.
8. Robert Dickau (2014-08-31). "Cross Menger (Jerusalem) Cube
Fractal" (http://www.robertdickau.com/jerusalemcube.html).
Robert Dickau. Retrieved 2017-05-08.
9. Eric Baird (2011-08-18). "The Jerusalem Cube" (http://alt-fractals.
blogspot.fr/2011/08/jerusalem-cube.html). Alt.Fractals. Retrieved
2013-03-13., published in Magazine Tangente 150, "l'art fractal"
(2013), p. 45.
10. Wade, Lizzie. "Folding Fractal Art from 49,000 Business Cards"
(https://www.wired.com/2012/09/folded-fractal-art-cards).
Retrieved 8 May 2017.
11. W., Weisstein, Eric. "Tetrix" (http://mathworld.wolfram.com/Tetrix.
html). mathworld.wolfram.com. Retrieved 8 May 2017.

Further reading
Iwaniec, Tadeusz; Martin, Gaven (2001), Geometric function theory and non-linear analysis, Oxford Mathematical
Monographs, The Clarendon Press Oxford University Press, ISBN 978-0-19-850929-5, MR 1859913 (https://www.
ams.org/mathscinet-getitem?mr=1859913).
Zhou, Li (2007), "Problem 11208: Chromatic numbers of the Menger sponges", American Mathematical Monthly,
114 (9): 842, JSTOR 27642353 (https://www.jstor.org/stable/27642353)

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External links
Menger sponge at Wolfram MathWorld (http://mathworld.wolfram.com/MengerSponge.html)
The 'Business Card Menger Sponge' by Dr. (http://theiff.org/oexhibits/menger01.html) Jeannine Mosely – an
online exhibit about this giant origami fractal at the Institute For Figuring
An interactive Menger sponge (http://www.mathematik.com/Menger/Menger2.html)
Interactive Java models (https://web.archive.org/web/20051217041007/http://www.ibiblio.org/e-notes/3Dapp/Spon
ge.htm)
Puzzle Hunt (http://santisan.free.fr/coco/extras2.htm) — Video explaining Zeno's paradoxes using Menger–
Sierpinski sponge
Menger Sponge Animations (http://www.pure-mirage.com/html/Optimized%20Menger%20Sponges.htm) —
Menger sponge animations up to level 9, discussion of optimization for 3d.
Menger sphere (https://www.flickr.com/photos/fpsunflower/337024546/), rendered in SunFlow
Post-It Menger Sponge (https://www.flickr.com/photos/rougeux/sets/72157621702780335/) – a level-3 Menger
sponge being built from Post-its
The Mystery of the Menger Sponge. (https://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/28/science/28math-menger.html?_r=1)
Sliced diagonally to reveal stars
Number of cards required to build a Menger sponge of level n in origami (http://oeis.org/A212596)
Woolly Thoughts Level 2 Menger Sponge (http://www.woollythoughts.com/menger.html) by two "Mathekniticians"
Dickau, R.: Jerusalem Cube (http://www.robertdickau.com/jerusalemcube.html) Further discussion.

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