Inside Out

http://www.google.com/patents/US6419111

Erl E. Kepner patented a bewildering object in 2002 — a one-sided coffee mug:

To help us see the unique properties of the beverage vessel, let’s pretend that the vessel is made of astonishingly thin material. This is a ‘thought experiment’, not a real experiment, where you actually physically do anything. Note that the only edge on the vessel is the rim that your lips would touch if you drank coffee from it. The rim of the container would be a very sharp edge while the areas where the container and the hollow handle come together would be smooth curved shapes. Now pretend that you have a very tiny little black ball shaped magnet located on the surface of the vessel somewhere and another little tiny white ball magnet located on the opposite side of the vessel material. If one were to (mentally) move either the black or white ball magnet, it would cause the white or black ball magnet to move also. One could move the black or white ball magnets, one at a time, along the vessel surface so that white ball magnet ended up where the black ball magnet was initially located and the black ball magnet was where the white ball magnet originally was. This can be accomplished without having either of the magnets pass over the vessel rim, which is the only edge of the vessel. Other than the Klein Bottle, no other hollow shape has this property. Another way to envision or demonstrate the unique properties of this shape is to point out the fact that a little bug can crawl from any point on the surface of the vessel to any other point on the surface of the vessel without crossing over an edge. Bugs cannot do this on a normal coffee cup or any other three-dimensional shape that we use in our daily lives.

“The future marketing of the beverage container of this invention will use these sorts of interesting points to stimulate interest among technically well educated people and everyday people with an innate curiosity and appreciation for the wonder and beauty of mathematics and nature.”

See Carry-All and the Klein bottle recycling center.