--- title: The Hairy Ball Theorem | daily.dev description: Unexpected applications and a beautiful proof. Looking for a new career? Check out https://3b1b.co/talent Supporters get early access to new videos:... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/the-hairy-ball-theorem-idjz0pbcb twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: The Hairy Ball Theorem | daily.dev og:description: Unexpected applications and a beautiful proof. Looking for a new career? Check out https://3b1b.co/talent Supporters get early access to new videos:... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/the-hairy-ball-theorem-idjz0pbcb og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/Idjz0pbcB.png og:image:alt: The Hairy Ball Theorem og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # The Hairy Ball Theorem **[3Blue1Brown](https://daily.dev/sources/3blue1brown)** · 29 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary Unexpected applications and a beautiful proof. Looking for a new career? Check out https://3b1b.co/talent Supporters get early access to new videos: https://3b1b.co/support An equally valuable form of support is to simply share the videos. Home page: https://www.3blue1brown.com Credits: Senia Sheydvasser: Co-writing and sphere deformation animations Paul Dancstep: Those lovely fluffy sphere animations Vince Rubinetti: Music Timestamps: 0:00 - To comb a hairy ball 1:24 - Applications 8:46 - The puzzle of one null point 12:12 - The proof outline 16:41 - Defining orientation 21:44 - Why inside-out is impossible 25:59 - 3b1b Talent 27:44 - Final food for thought ------------------ These animations are largely made using a custom Python library, manim. See the FAQ comments here: https://3b1b.co/faq#manim Music by Vincent Rubinetti. https://vincerubinetti.bandcamp.com/album/the-music-of-3blue1brown https://open.spotify.com/album/1dVyjwS8FBqXhRunaG5W5u ------------------ 3blue1brown is a channel about animating math, in all senses of the word animate. If you're reading the bottom of a video description, I'm guessing you're more interested than the average viewer in lessons here. It would mean a lot to me if you chose to stay up to date on new ones, either by subscribing here on YouTube or otherwise following on whichever platform below you check most regularly. Mailing list: https://3blue1brown.substack.com Twitter: https://twitter.com/3blue1brown Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/3blue1brown.com Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/3blue1brown Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/3blue1brown Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/3blue1brown Patreon: https://patreon.com/3blue1brown Website: https://www.3blue1brown.com ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [Don’t just attend KubeCon \+ CloudNativeCon, Merge Forward your experience\!](https://daily.dev/posts/don-t-just-attend-kubecon-cloudnativecon-merge-forward-your-experience--l0rpp73x8) · CNCF · 1 upvotes · 0 comments - [Announcing H2 2026 KCDs](https://daily.dev/posts/announcing-h2-2026-kcds-m96goajm1) · CNCF · 1 upvotes · 0 comments - [Two months of Open Community Groups](https://daily.dev/posts/two-months-of-open-community-groups-asf52zhbs) · CNCF · 0 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#math](https://daily.dev/tags/math) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/the-hairy-ball-theorem-idjz0pbcb) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"The Hairy Ball Theorem","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/the-hairy-ball-theorem-idjz0pbcb","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/the-hairy-ball-theorem-idjz0pbcb"},"datePublished":"2026-01-31T15:20:46.100Z","dateModified":"2026-01-31T17:07:48.080Z","description":"Unexpected applications and a beautiful proof.\nLooking for a new career? 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