10-cube
10-demicube
10-orthoplex
10-simplex
120-cell
16-cell
1 22 polytope
1 32 polytope
1 42 polytope
24-cell
2 21 polytope
2 31 polytope
2 41 polytope
3 21 polytope
4 21 polytope
5-cell
5-demicube
5-orthoplex
5-simplex
6-cube
6-demicube
6-orthoplex
6-simplex
600-cell
7-cube
7-demicube
7-orthoplex
7-simplex
8-cube
8-demicube
8-orthoplex
8-simplex
9-cube
9-demicube
9-orthoplex
9-simplex
Abūl Wafā' Būzjānī
Abstract polytope
Affine geometry
Ancient Greece
Antiprism
Apeirogon
Apeirohedron
Archimedean solid
Archimedes
Architecture
Ashmolean Museum
Bicupola (geometry)
Bipyramid
Bipyramids
Boundary (topology)
Branko Grünbaum
Catalan solid
Catalan solids
Cauchy
Cell (geometry)
Chirality (mathematics)
Complete graph
Complex polytope
Computational geometry
Convex hull
Convex polyhedron
Convex polytope
Conway polyhedron notation
Coplanar
Coxeter
Coxeter group#Finite Coxeter groups
Crystal
Cube
Cube (geometry)
Cuboctahedron
Cupola (geometry)
Cyclic symmetries
Decahedron
Defect (geometry)
Degree (graph theory)
Deltahedron
Deltohedron
Deltoidal hexecontahedron
Deltoidal icositetrahedron
Demicube
Dihedral symmetry
Dihedron
Disdyakis dodecahedron
Disdyakis triacontahedron
Divergence theorem
Dodecahedron
Dual polyhedron
E6 (mathematics)
E7 (mathematics)
E8 (mathematics)
Edge-transitive
Edge (geometry)
Egypt
Elongated pentagonal cupola
Eric W. Weisstein
Etruscan civilization
Euclid
Euclid's Elements
Euclidean geometry
10-demicube
10-orthoplex
10-simplex
120-cell
16-cell
1 22 polytope
1 32 polytope
1 42 polytope
24-cell
2 21 polytope
2 31 polytope
2 41 polytope
3 21 polytope
4 21 polytope
5-cell
5-demicube
5-orthoplex
5-simplex
6-cube
6-demicube
6-orthoplex
6-simplex
600-cell
7-cube
7-demicube
7-orthoplex
7-simplex
8-cube
8-demicube
8-orthoplex
8-simplex
9-cube
9-demicube
9-orthoplex
9-simplex
Abūl Wafā' Būzjānī
Abstract polytope
Affine geometry
Ancient Greece
Antiprism
Apeirogon
Apeirohedron
Archimedean solid
Archimedes
Architecture
Ashmolean Museum
Bicupola (geometry)
Bipyramid
Bipyramids
Boundary (topology)
Branko Grünbaum
Catalan solid
Catalan solids
Cauchy
Cell (geometry)
Chirality (mathematics)
Complete graph
Complex polytope
Computational geometry
Convex hull
Convex polyhedron
Convex polytope
Conway polyhedron notation
Coplanar
Coxeter
Coxeter group#Finite Coxeter groups
Crystal
Cube
Cube (geometry)
Cuboctahedron
Cupola (geometry)
Cyclic symmetries
Decahedron
Defect (geometry)
Degree (graph theory)
Deltahedron
Deltohedron
Deltoidal hexecontahedron
Deltoidal icositetrahedron
Demicube
Dihedral symmetry
Dihedron
Disdyakis dodecahedron
Disdyakis triacontahedron
Divergence theorem
Dodecahedron
Dual polyhedron
E6 (mathematics)
E7 (mathematics)
E8 (mathematics)
Edge-transitive
Edge (geometry)
Egypt
Elongated pentagonal cupola
Eric W. Weisstein
Etruscan civilization
Euclid
Euclid's Elements
Euclidean geometry
This article includes a list of references, related reading or external links, but its sources remain unclear because it lacks inline citations. Please improve this article by introducing more precise citations where appropriate. (December 2010)
For the game magazine, see Polyhedron (magazine). For the scientific journal, see Polyhedron (journal).
"Polyhedra" redirects here. For the relational database system, see Polyhedra DBMS.
Some Polyhedra
Dodecahedron
(Regular polyhedron)
Small stellated dodecahedron
(Regular star)
Icosidodecahedron
(Uniform)
Great cubicuboctahedron
(Uniform star)
Rhombic triacontahedron
(Uniform dual)
Elongated pentagonal cupola
(Convex regular-faced)
Octagonal prism
(Uniform prism)
Square antiprism
(Uniform antiprism)
A polyhedron (plural polyhedra or polyhedrons) is a geometric solid in three dimensions with flat faces and straight edges. The word polyhedron comes from the Classical Greek πολύεδρον, as poly- (stem of πολύς, "many") + -edron (form of έδρα, "base", "seat", or "face").
Defining a polyhedron as a solid bounded by flat faces and straight edges is not very precise and, to a modern mathematician, quite unsatisfactory. Grünbaum (1994, p. 43) observed, "The Original Sin in the theory of polyhedra goes back to Euclid, and through Kepler, Poinsot, Cauchy and many others ... [in that] at each stage ... the writers failed to define what are the 'polyhedra' ...." Since then rigorous definitions of "polyhedron" have been given within particular contexts. However such definitions are seldom compatible in other contexts.
Contents
1 Basis for definition
2 Characteristics
2.1 Names of polyhedra
2.2 Edges
2.3 Euler characteristic
2.4 Orientability
2.5 Vertex figure
2.6 Duality
2.7 Volume
3 Traditional polyhedra
3.1 Symmetrical polyhedra
3.1.1 Uniform polyhedra and their duals
3.1.2 Noble polyhedra
3.1.3 Symmetry groups
3.2 Other polyhedra with regular faces
3.2.1 Equal regular faces
3.2.1.1 Deltahedra
3.2.2 Johnson solids
3.3 Other important families of polyhedra
3.3.1 Pyramids
3.3.2 Stellations and facettings
3.3.3 Zonohedra
3.3.4 Toroidal polyhedra
3.3.5 Compounds
3.3.6 Orthogonal polyhedra
4 Generalisations of polyhedra
4.1 Apeirohedra
4.2 Complex polyhedra
4.3 Curved polyhedra
4.3.1 Spherical polyhedra
4.3.2 Curved spacefilling polyhedra
4.4 General polyhedra
4.5 Hollow faced or skeletal polyhedra
5 Non-geometric polyhedra
5.1 Topological polyhedra
5.2 Abstract polyhedra
5.3 Polyhedra as graphs
6 History
6.1 Prehistory
6.2 Greeks
6.3 Chinese and Muslims
6.4 Renaissance
6.5 Star polyhedra
7 Polyhedra in nature
8 See also
9 References
10 Books on polyhedra
11 External links
11.1 General theory
11.2 Lists and databases of polyhedra
11.3 Software
11.4 Resources for making models, and models for sale
11.5 Miscellaneous
Basis for definition
Any polyhedron can be built up from different kinds of element or entity, each associated with a different number of dimensions:
3 dimensions: The body is bounded by the faces, and is usually the volume enclosed by them.
2 dimensions: A face is a polygon bounded by a circuit of edges, and usually including the flat (plane) region inside the boundary. These polygonal faces together make up the polyhedral surface.
1 dimension: An edge joins one vertex to another and one face to another, and is usually a line segment. The edges together make up the polyhedral skeleton.
0 dimensions: A vertex (plural vertices) is a corner point.
-1 dimension: The null polytope is a kind of non-entity required by abstract theories.
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The Platonic Geometry is a series of kinetic sculptures dealing with the metamorphosis of a regular polyhedron. Cs&246; applies the language of geometry and physics to traditional, pre-digital-age materials like sticks, strings and small electric motors to ...
http://www.redorbit.com/news/entertainment/1996517/mit_program_in_art_culture_and_technology_announces_spring_lecture/index.html
The Platonic Geometry is a series of kinetic sculptures dealing with the metamorphosis of a regular polyhedron. Cs&246; applies the language of geometry and physics to traditional, pre-digital-age materials like sticks, strings and small electric motors to ...
http://www.redorbit.com/news/entertainment/1996517/mit_program_in_art_culture_and_technology_announces_spring_lecture/index.html
Polyhedron
A polyhedron (plural polyhedra or polyhedrons) is often defined as a geometric object ... This definition of a polyhedron is not very precise, and to a modern ...
More generally in mathematics and other disciplines, "polyhedron" is used to refer to a variety of related constructs, some geometric and others purely algebraic or abstract.
A defining characteristic of almost all kinds of polyhedra is that just two faces join along any common edge. This ensures that the polyhedral surface is continuously connected and does not end abruptly or split off in different directions.
A polyhedron is a 3-dimensional example of the more general polytope in any number of dimensions.
Characteristics
Names of polyhedra
Polyhedra are often named according to the number of faces. The naming system is again based on Classical Greek, for example tetrahedron (4), pentahedron (5), hexahedron (6), heptahedron (7), triacontahedron (30), and so on.
Often this is qualified by a description of the kinds of faces present, for example the Rhombic dodecahedron vs. the Pentagonal dodecahedron.
Other common names indicate that some operation has been performed on a simpler polyhedron, for example the truncated cube looks like a cube with its corners cut off, and has 14 faces (so it is also an example of a tetrakaidecahedron).
Some special polyhedra have grown their own names over the years, such as Miller's monster or the Szilassi polyhedron.
Edges
Edges have two important characteristics (unless the polyhedron is complex):
An edge joins just two vertices.
An edge joins just two faces.
These two characteristics are dual to each other.
Euler characteristic
The Euler characteristic χ relates the number of vertices V, edges E, and faces F of a polyhedron:
For a simply connected polyhedron, χ = 2. For a detailed discussion, see Proofs and Refutations by Imre Lakatos.
Orientability
Some polyhedra, such as all convex polyhedra, have two distinct sides to their surface, for example one side can consistently be coloured black and the other white. We say that the figure is orientable.
But for some polyhedra this is not possible, and the figure is said to be non-orientable. All polyhedra with odd-numbered Euler characteristic are non-orientable. A given figure with even χ < 2 may or may not be orientable.
Vertex figure
For every vertex one can define a vertex figure, which describes the local structure of the figure around the vertex. If the vertex figure is a regular polygon, then the vertex itself is said to be regular.
Duality
For every polyhedron there exists a dual polyhedron having:
faces in place of the original's vertices and vice versa,
the same number of edges
the same Euler characteristic and orientability
The dual of a convex polyhedron can be obtained by the process of polar reciprocation.
Volume
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The volume of an orientable polyhedron can be calculated using the divergence theorem. Consider the vector field , whose divergence is identically 1. The divergence theorem implies that the volume of any region Ω is
When Ω is the region enclosed by a polyhedron, since the faces of a polyhedron are planar and have piecewise constant normals, this simplifies to
where for the i'th face, is any point on the face, is the normal vector, and Ai is area of the face.
Traditional polyhedra
A dodecahedron
In geometry, a polyhedron is traditionally a three-dimensional shape that is made up of a finite number of polygonal faces which are parts of planes; the faces meet in pairs along edges which are straight-line segments, and the edges meet in points called vertices. Cubes, prisms and pyramids are examples of polyhedra. The polyhedron surrounds a bounded volume in three-dimensional space; sometimes this interior volume is considered to be part of the polyhedron, sometimes only the surface is considered, and occasionally only the skeleton of edges.
Polyhedron - New World Encyclopedia
In geometry, a polyhedron (plural polyhedra or polyhedrons) is often defined as a three-dimensional object with flat, polygonal faces and straight edges. ...
A polyhedron is said to be convex if its surface (comprising its faces, edges and vertices) does not intersect itself and the line segment joining any two points of the polyhedron is contained in the interior or surface.
Symmetrical polyhedra
Many of the most studied polyhedra are highly symmetrical.
Of course it is easy to distort such polyhedra so they are no longer symmetrical. But where a polyhedral name is given, such as icosidodecahedron, the most symmetrical geometry is almost always implied, unless otherwise stated.
Some of the most common names in particular are often used with "regular" in front or implied because for each there are different types which have little in common except for having the same number of faces. These are the triangular pyramid or tetrahedron, cube or hexahedron, octahedron, dodecahedron and icosahedron:
Polyhedra of the highest symmetries have all of some kind of element - faces, edges and/or vertices, within a single symmetry orbit. There are various classes of such polyhedra:
Isogonal or Vertex-transitive if all vertices are the same, in the sense that for any two vertices there exists a symmetry of the polyhedron mapping the first isometrically onto the second.
Isotoxal or Edge-transitive if all edges are the same, in the sense that for any two edges there exists a symmetry of the polyhedron mapping the first isometrically onto the second.
Isohedral or Face-transitive if all faces are the same, in the sense that for any two faces there exists a symmetry of the polyhedron mapping the first isometrically onto the second.
Regular if it is vertex-transitive, edge-transitive and face-transitive (this implies that every face is the same regular polygon; it also implies that every vertex is regular).
Quasi-regular if it is vertex-transitive and edge-transitive (and hence has regular faces) but not face-transitive. A quasi-regular dual is face-transitive and edge-transitive (and hence every vertex is regular) but not vertex-transitive.
Semi-regular if it is vertex-transitive but not edge-transitive, and every face is a regular polygon. (This is one of several definitions of the term, depending on author. Some definitions overlap with the quasi-regular class). A semi-regular dual is face-transitive but not vertex-transitive, and every vertex is regular.
Uniform if it is vertex-transitive and every face is a regular polygon, i.e. it is regular, quasi-regular or semi-regular. A uniform dual is face-transitive and has regular vertices, but is not necessarily vertex-transitive).
Noble if it is face-transitive and vertex-transitive (but not necessarily edge-transitive). The regular polyhedra are also noble; they are the only noble uniform polyhedra.
A polyhedron can belong to the same overall symmetry group as one of higher symmetry, but will have several groups of elements (for example faces) in different symmetry orbits.
Uniform polyhedra and their duals
Main article: Uniform polyhedron
Uniform polyhedra are vertex-transitive and every face is a regular polygon. They may be regular, quasi-regular, or semi-regular, and may be convex or starry.
The uniform duals are face-transitive and every vertex figure is a regular polygon.
Face-transitivity of a polyhedron corresponds to vertex-transitivity of the dual and conversely, and edge-transitivity of a polyhedron corresponds to edge-transitivity of the dual. The dual of a regular polyhedron is also regular. The dual of a non-regular uniform polyhedron (called a Catalan solid if convex) has irregular faces.
polyhedron: Definition from Answers.com
polyhedron n. , pl. , -drons , or -dra . A solid bounded by polygons. polyhedral pol ' yhe ' dral ... A polyhedron is convex if it passes this test: if any face is placed ...
Each uniform polyhedron shares the same symmetry as its dual, with the symmetries of faces and vertices simply swapped over. Because of this some authorities regard the duals as uniform too. But this idea is not held widely: a polyhedron and its symmetries are not the same thing.
The uniform polyhedra and their duals are traditionally classified according to their degree of symmetry, and whether they are convex or not.
Convex uniform
Convex uniform dual
Star uniform
Star uniform dual
Regular
Platonic solids
Kepler-Poinsot polyhedra
Quasiregular
Archimedean solids
Catalan solids
(no special name)
(no special name)
Semiregular
(no special name)
(no special name)
Prisms
Dipyramids
Star Prisms
Star Dipyramids
Antiprisms
Trapezohedra
Star Antiprisms
Star Trapezohedra
Noble polyhedra
Main article: Noble polyhedron
A noble polyhedron is both isohedral (equal-faced) and isogonal (equal-cornered). Besides the regular polyhedra, there are many other examples.
The dual of a noble polyhedron is also noble.
Symmetry groups
The polyhedral symmetry groups (using Schoenflies notation) are all point groups and include:
T - chiral tetrahedral symmetry; the rotation group for a regular tetrahedron; order 12.
Td - full tetrahedral symmetry; the symmetry group for a regular tetrahedron; order 24.
Th - pyritohedral symmetry; order 24. The symmetry of a pyritohedron.
O - chiral octahedral symmetry;the rotation group of the cube and octahedron; order 24.
Oh - full octahedral symmetry; the symmetry group of the cube and octahedron; order 48.
I - chiral icosahedral symmetry; the rotation group of the icosahedron and the dodecahedron; order 60.
Ih - full icosahedral symmetry; the symmetry group of the icosahedron and the dodecahedron; order 120.
Cnv - n-fold pyramidal symmetry
Dnh - n-fold prismatic symmetry
Dnv - n-fold antiprismatic symmetry
Those with chiral symmetry do not have reflection symmetry and hence have two enantiomorphous forms which are reflections of each other. The snub Archimedean polyhedra have this property.
Other polyhedra with regular faces
Equal regular faces
A few families of polyhedra, where every face is the same kind of polygon:
Deltahedra have equilateral triangles for faces.
With regard to polyhedra whose faces are all squares: if coplanar faces are not allowed, even if they are disconnected, there is only the cube. Otherwise there is also the result of pasting six cubes to the sides of one, all seven of the same size; it has 30 square faces (counting disconnected faces in the same plane as separate). This can be extended in one, two, or three directions: we can consider the union of arbitrarily many copies of these structures, obtained by translations of (expressed in cube sizes) (2,0,0), (0,2,0), and/or (0,0,2), hence with each adjacent pair having one common cube. The result can be any connected set of cubes with positions (a,b,c), with integers a,b,c of which at most one is even.
There is no special name for polyhedra whose faces are all equilateral pentagons or pentagrams. There are infinitely many of these, but only one is convex: the dodecahedron. The rest are assembled by (pasting) combinations of the regular polyhedra described earlier: the dodecahedron, the small stellated dodecahedron, the great stellated dodecahedron and the great icosahedron.
There exists no polyhedron whose faces are all identical and are regular polygons with six or more sides because the vertex of three regular hexagons defines a plane. (See infinite skew polyhedron for exceptions with zig-zagging vertex figures.)
Deltahedra
Here s the cross section by itself The full polyhedron can be constructed out of six intersecting cross sections though many of the chunks are duplicated when you do this Looking perpendicularly at it This incorporates chunks from shells 1 through 6 referring to the applet s shell slider To get the shell number of a chunk just add 1 to the number of
http://dogfeathers.com/icosidodec/topo.html
Polyhedron - Elsevier
Polyhedron will publish original, fundamental, experimental and theoretical work of the highest quality in all the major areas of inorganic chemistry. ...
A deltahedron (plural deltahedra) is a polyhedron whose faces are all equilateral triangles. There are infinitely many deltahedra, but only eight of these are convex:
3 regular convex polyhedra (3 of the Platonic solids)
Tetrahedron
Octahedron
Icosahedron
5 non-uniform convex polyhedra (5 of the Johnson solids)
Triangular dipyramid
Pentagonal dipyramid
Snub disphenoid
Triaugmented triangular prism
Gyroelongated square dipyramid
Johnson solids
Main article: Johnson solid
Norman Johnson sought which convex non-uniform polyhedra had regular faces. In 1966, he published a list of 92 such solids, gave them names and numbers, and conjectured that there were no others. Victor Zalgaller proved in 1969 that the list of these Johnson solids was complete.
Other important families of polyhedra
Pyramids
Main article: Pyramid (geometry)
Pyramids include some of the most time-honoured and famous of all polyhedra.
Stellations and facettings
Main article: Stellation
Stellation of a polyhedron is the process of extending the faces (within their planes) so that they meet to form a new polyhedron.
It is the exact reciprocal to the process of facetting which is the process of removing parts of a polyhedron without creating any new vertices.
Zonohedra
Main article: Zonohedron
A zonohedron is a convex polyhedron where every face is a polygon with inversion symmetry or, equivalently, symmetry under rotations through 180°.
Toroidal polyhedra
Main article: Toroidal polyhedron
A toroidal polyhedron is a polyhedron with an Euler characteristic of 0 or smaller, representing a torus surface.
Compounds
Main article: Polyhedral compound
Polyhedral compounds are formed as compounds of two or more polyhedra.
These compounds often share the same vertices as other polyhedra and are often formed by stellation. Some are listed in the list of Wenninger polyhedron models.
Orthogonal polyhedra
An orthogonal polyhedron is one all of whose faces meet at right angles, and all of whose edges are parallel to axes of a Cartesian coordinate system. Aside from a rectangular box, orthogonal polyhedra are nonconvex. They are the 3D analogs of 2D orthogonal polygons, also known as rectilinear polygons. Orthogonal polyhedra are used in computational geometry, where their constrained structure has enabled advances on problems unsolved for arbitrary polyhedra, for example, unfolding the surface of a polyhedron to a polygonal net.
Generalisations of polyhedra
The name 'polyhedron' has come to be used for a variety of objects having similar structural properties to traditional polyhedra.
Apeirohedra
A classical polyhedral surface comprises finite, bounded plane regions, joined in pairs along edges. If such a surface extends indefinitely it is called an apeirohedron. Examples include:
Tilings or tessellations of the plane.
Sponge-like structures called infinite skew polyhedra.
See also: Apeirogon - infinite regular polygon: {∞}
Complex polyhedra
A complex polyhedron is one which is constructed in complex Hilbert 3-space. This space has six dimensions: three real ones corresponding to ordinary space, with each accompanied by an imaginary dimension. See for example Coxeter (1974).
Curved polyhedra
Some fields of study allow polyhedra to have curved faces and edges.
Spherical polyhedra
Main article: Spherical polyhedron
The surface of a sphere may be divided by line segments into bounded regions, to form a spherical polyhedron. Much of the theory of symmetrical polyhedra is most conveniently derived in this way.
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Spherical polyhedra have a long and respectable history:
The first known man-made polyhedra are spherical polyhedra carved in stone.
Poinsot used spherical polyhedra to discover the four regular star polyhedra.
Coxeter used them to enumerate all but one of the uniform polyhedra.
Some polyhedra, such as hosohedra and dihedra, exist only as spherical polyhedra and have no flat-faced analogue.
Curved spacefilling polyhedra
Two important types are:
Bubbles in froths and foams, such as Weaire-Phelan bubbles.
Spacefilling forms used in architecture. See for example Pearce (1978).
General polyhedra
More recently mathematics has defined a polyhedron as a set in real affine (or Euclidean) space of any dimensional n that has flat sides. It may alternatively be defined as the union of a finite number of convex polyhedra, where a convex polyhedron is any set that is the intersection of a finite number of half-spaces. It may be bounded or unbounded. In this meaning, a polytope is a bounded polyhedron.
Analytically, such a convex polyhedron is expressed as the solution set for a system of linear inequalities. Defining polyhedra (and more generally polytopes) in this way provides a geometric perspective for problems in Linear programming.
Many traditional polyhedral forms are general polyhedra. Other examples include:
A quadrant in the plane. For instance, the region of the cartesian plane consisting of all points above the horizontal axis and to the right of the vertical axis: { ( x, y ) : x ≥ 0, y ≥ 0 }. Its sides are the two positive axes.
An octant in Euclidean 3-space, { ( x, y, z ) : x ≥ 0, y ≥ 0, z ≥ 0 }.
A prism of infinite extent. For instance a doubly infinite square prism in 3-space, consisting of a square in the xy-plane swept along the z-axis: { ( x, y, z ) : 0 ≤ x ≤ 1, 0 ≤ y ≤ 1 }.
Each cell in a Voronoi tessellation is a convex polyhedron. In the Voronoi tessellation of a set S, the cell A corresponding to a point c∈S is bounded (hence a traditional polyhedron) when c lies in the interior of the convex hull of S, and otherwise (when c lies on the boundary of the convex hull of S) A is unbounded.
Hollow faced or skeletal polyhedra
It is not necessary to fill in the face of a figure before we can call it a polyhedron. For example Leonardo da Vinci devised frame models of the regular solids, which he drew for Pacioli's book Divina Proportione. In modern times, Branko Grünbaum (1994) made a special study of this class of polyhedra, in which he developed an early idea of abstract polyhedra. He defined a face as a cyclically ordered set of vertices, and allowed faces to be skew as well as planar.
Non-geometric polyhedra
Various mathematical constructs have been found to have properties also present in traditional polyhedra.
Topological polyhedra
A topological polytope is a topological space given along with a specific decomposition into shapes that are topologically equivalent to convex polytopes and that are attached to each other in a regular way.
Such a figure is called simplicial if each of its regions is a simplex, i.e. in an n-dimensional space each region has n+1 vertices. The dual of a simplicial polytope is called simple. Similarly, a widely studied class of polytopes (polyhedra) is that of cubical polyhedra, when the basic building block is an n-dimensional cube.
Abstract polyhedra
An abstract polyhedron is a partially ordered set (poset) of elements whose partial ordering obeys certain rules. Theories differ in detail, but essentially the elements of the set correspond to the body, faces, edges and vertices of the polyhedron. The empty set corresponds to the null polytope, or nullitope, which has a dimensionality of −1. These posets belong to the larger family of abstract polytopes in any number of dimensions.
Polyhedra as graphs
polyhedron - definition of polyhedron by the Free Online ...
Translations of polyhedron. polyhedron synonyms, polyhedron antonyms. Information about polyhedron in the free online English dictionary and ...
Any polyhedron gives rise to a graph, or skeleton, with corresponding vertices and edges. Thus graph terminology and properties can be applied to polyhedra. For example:
Due to Steinitz theorem convex polyhedra are in one-to-one correspondence with 3-connected planar graphs.
The tetrahedron gives rise to a complete graph (K4). It is the only polyhedron to do so.
The octahedron gives rise to a strongly regular graph, because adjacent vertices always have two common neighbors, and non-adjacent vertices have four.
The Archimedean solids give rise to regular graphs: 7 of the Archimedean solids are of degree 3, 4 of degree 4, and the remaining 2 are chiral pairs of degree 5.
History
Prehistory
Stones carved in shapes showing the symmetries of various polyhedra have been found in Scotland and may be as much as 4,000 years old. These stones show not only the form of various symmetrical polyehdra, but also the relations of duality amongst some of them (that is, that the centres of the faces of the cube gives the vertices of an octahedron, and so on). Examples of these stones are on display in the John Evans room of the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford University. It is impossible to know why these objects were made, or how the sculptor gained the inspiration for them.
Other polyhedra have of course made their mark in architecture - cubes and cuboids being obvious examples, with the earliest four-sided pyramids of ancient Egypt also dating from the Stone Age.
The Etruscans preceded the Greeks in their awareness of at least some of the regular polyhedra, as evidenced by the discovery near Padua (in Northern Italy) in the late 19th century of a dodecahedron made of soapstone, and dating back more than 2,500 years (Lindemann, 1987). Pyritohedric crystals are found in northern Italycitation needed.
Greeks
The earliest known written records of these shapes come from Classical Greek authors, who also gave the first known mathematical description of them. The earlier Greeks were interested primarily in the convex regular polyhedra, which came to be known as the Platonic solids. Pythagoras knew at least three of them, and Theaetetus (circa 417 B. C.) described all five. Eventually, Euclid described their construction in his Elements. Later, Archimedes expanded his study to the convex uniform polyhedra which now bear his name. His original work is lost and his solids come down to us through Pappus.
Chinese and Muslims
By 236 AD, in China Liu Hui was describing the dissection of the cube into its characteristic tetrahedron (orthoscheme) and related solids, using assemblages of these solids as the basis for calculating volumes of earth to be moved during engineering excavations.
After the end of the Classical era, Islamic scholars continued to take the Greek knowledge forward. The 9th century scholar Thabit ibn Qurra gave formulae for calculating the volumes of polyhedra such as truncated pyramids. Then in the 10th century Abu'l Wafa described the convex regular and quasiregular spherical polyhedra.
Renaissance
As with other areas of Greek thought maintained and enhanced by Islamic scholars, Western interest in polyhedra revived during the Italian Renaissance. Artists constructed skeletal polyhedra, depicting them from life as a part of their investigations into perspective. Several appear in marquetry panels of the period. Piero della Francesca gave the first written description of direct geometrical construction of such perspective views of polyhedra. Leonardo da Vinci made skeletal models of several polyhedra and drew illustrations of them for a book by Pacioli. A painting by an anonymous artist of Pacioli and a pupli depicts a glass rhombicuboctahedron half-filled with water.
Polyhedron definition of Polyhedron in the Free Online ...
Encyclopedia article about Polyhedron. Information about Polyhedron in the Columbia Encyclopedia, Computer Desktop Encyclopedia, computing dictionary. regular ...
As the Renaissance spread beyond Italy, later artists such as Wenzel Jamnitzer, Dürer and others also depicted polyhedra of various kinds, many of them novel, in imaginative etchings.
Star polyhedra
For almost 2,000 years, the concept of a polyhedron as a convex solid had remained as developed by the ancient Greek mathematicians.
During the Renaissance star forms were discovered. A marble tarsia in the floor of St. Mark's Basilica, Venice, depicts a stellated dodecahedron. Artists such as Wenzel Jamnitzer delighted in depicting novel star-like forms of increasing complexity.
Johannes Kepler realised that star polygons, typically pentagrams, could be used to build star polyhedra. Some of these star polyhedra may have been discovered before Kepler's time, but he was the first to recognise that they could be considered "regular" if one removed the restriction that regular polytopes be convex. Later, Louis Poinsot realised that star vertex figures (circuits around each corner) can also be used, and discovered the remaining two regular star polyhedra. Cauchy proved Poinsot's list complete, and Cayley gave them their accepted English names: (Kepler's) the small stellated dodecahedron and great stellated dodecahedron, and (Poinsot's) the great icosahedron and great dodecahedron. Collectively they are called the Kepler-Poinsot polyhedra.
The Kepler-Poinsot polyhedra may be constructed from the Platonic solids by a process called stellation. Most stellations are not regular. The study of stellations of the Platonic solids was given a big push by H. S. M. Coxeter and others in 1938, with the now famous paper The 59 icosahedra. This work has recently been re-published (Coxeter, 1999).
The reciprocal process to stellation is called facetting (or faceting). Every stellation of one polytope is dual, or reciprocal, to some facetting of the dual polytope. The regular star polyhedra can also be obtained by facetting the Platonic solids. Bridge 1974 listed the simpler facettings of the dodecahedron, and reciprocated them to discover a stellation of the icosahedron that was missing from the famous "59". More have been discovered since, and the story is not yet ended.
See also:
Regular polyhedron: History
Regular polytope: History of discovery.
Polyhedra in nature
For natural occurrences of regular polyhedra, see Regular polyhedron: Regular polyhedra in nature.
Irregular polyhedra appear in nature as crystals.
See also
Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Polyhedron
Look up polyhedron in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
Antiprism
Archimedean solid
Bipyramid
Conway polyhedron notation (a notation for describing construction of polyhedra)
Defect
Deltahedron
Deltohedron
Escher
Flexible polyhedra
Johnson solid
Kepler-Poinsot polyhedra
List of polyhedral images
Near-miss Johnson solid
Net (polyhedron)
Platonic solid
Polychoron (4 dimensional analogues to polyhedra)
Polyhedral compound
Polyhedron models
Prism
Semiregular polyhedron
Schlegel diagram
Spidron
Tessellation
Trapezohedron
Uniform polyhedron
Waterman polyhedron
Zonohedron
Extension of a polyhedron
References
Coxeter, H.S.M.; Regular complex Polytopes, CUP (1974).
Cromwell, P.;Polyhedra, CUP hbk (1997), pbk. (1999).
Grünbaum, B.; Polyhedra with Hollow Faces, Proc of NATO-ASI Conference on Polytopes ... etc. (Toronto 1993), ed T. Bisztriczky et al., Kluwer Academic (1994) pp. 43–70.
Grünbaum, B.; Are your polyhedra the same as my polyhedra? Discrete and comput. geom: the Goodman-Pollack festschrift, ed. Aronov et al. Springer (2003) pp. 461–488. (pdf)
Pearce, P.; Structure in nature is a strategy for design, MIT (1978)
Books on polyhedra
Main article: List of books about polyhedra
External links
General theory
Weisstein, Eric W., "Polyhedron" from MathWorld.
Polyhedra Pages
uniform solution for uniform polyhedra by Dr. Zvi Har'El
Symmetry, Crystals and Polyhedra
Symmetrohedra: Polyhedra from Symmetric Placement of Regular Polygons
Lists and databases of polyhedra
The Uniform Polyhedra
Virtual Reality Polyhedra - The Encyclopedia of Polyhedra
Polyhedra and Pyramids
Interactive 3D polyhedra in Java
Electronic Geometry Models - Contains a peer reviewed selection of polyhedra with unusual properties.
Origami Polyhedra - Models made with Modular Origami
Polyhedra Collection - Various virtual and physical polyhedra models.
Polyhedra plaited with paper strips - Polyhedra models constructed without use of glue.
Rotatable polyhedron models (uses Javascript)
Rotatable self-intersecting polyhedra (uses Java)
Polyhedron Models - Virtual polyhedra
Java Applets for Visualizing Polyhedra - Systematically explicit formulae given!
Software
A Plethora of Polyhedra An interactive and free collection of polyhedra in JAVA. Features includes nets, planar sections, duals, truncations and stellations of more than 300 polyhedra.
Stella: Polyhedron Navigator - Software for exploring polyhedra and printing nets for their physical construction. Includes uniform polyhedra, stellations, compounds, Johnson solids, etc.
World of Polyhedra - Comprehensive polyhedra in flash applet, showing vertices and edges (but not shaded faces)
Hyperspace Star Polytope Slicer - Explorer java applet, includes a variety of 3d viewer options.
HEDRON Polyhedron modelling software
Uniform Polyhedra Java Applets with sources
Resources for making models, and models for sale
Making Polyhedra
Paper Models of Polyhedra Free nets of polyhedra
Paper Models of Uniform (and other) Polyhedra
Kits and instructions for making models of polyhedra out of bamboo
Polyhedra software, die-cast models, & posters
Simple instructions for building over 30 paper polyhedra
Kits to print out, cut, and fold into various polyhedra
Miscellaneous
PictureSpice - A site that lets you make polyhedra with your own uploaded pictures.
Lattice Polyhedra
v · d · ePolyhedra
Dihedron • Tetrahedron • Pentahedron • Hexahedron • Heptahedron • Octahedron • Decahedron • Dodecahedron • Tetradecahedron • Icosahedron
v · d · ePolyhedron navigator
Platonic solids (regular)
tetrahedron · cube · octahedron · dodecahedron · icosahedron
Archimedean solids
(Semiregular/Uniform)
truncated tetrahedron · cuboctahedron · truncated cube · truncated octahedron · rhombicuboctahedron · truncated cuboctahedron · snub cube · icosidodecahedron · truncated dodecahedron · truncated icosahedron · rhombicosidodecahedron · truncated icosidodecahedron · snub dodecahedron
Catalan solids
(Dual semiregular)
triakis tetrahedron · rhombic dodecahedron · triakis octahedron · tetrakis cube · deltoidal icositetrahedron · disdyakis dodecahedron · pentagonal icositetrahedron · rhombic triacontahedron · triakis icosahedron · pentakis dodecahedron · deltoidal hexecontahedron · disdyakis triacontahedron · pentagonal hexecontahedron
Dihedral regular
dihedron · hosohedron
Dihedral uniform
prisms · antiprisms
Duals of dihedral uniform
bipyramids · trapezohedra
Dihedral others
pyramids · truncated trapezohedra · gyroelongated bipyramid · cupola · bicupola · pyramidal frusta
Degenerate polyhedra are in italics.
v · d · eFundamental convex regular and uniform polytopes in dimensions 2–10
Family
An
BCn
Dn
E6 / E7 / E8 / F4 / G2
Hn
Regular polygon
Triangle
Square
Hexagon
Pentagon
Uniform polyhedron
Tetrahedron
Octahedron • Cube
Demicube
Dodecahedron • Icosahedron
Uniform polychoron
5-cell
16-cell • Tesseract
Demitesseract
24-cell
120-cell • 600-cell
Uniform 5-polytope
5-simplex
5-orthoplex • 5-cube
5-demicube
Uniform 6-polytope
6-simplex
6-orthoplex • 6-cube
6-demicube
122 • 221
Uniform 7-polytope
7-simplex
7-orthoplex • 7-cube
7-demicube
132 • 231 • 321
Uniform 8-polytope
8-simplex
8-orthoplex • 8-cube
8-demicube
142 • 241 • 421
Uniform 9-polytope
9-simplex
9-orthoplex • 9-cube
9-demicube
Uniform 10-polytope
10-simplex
10-orthoplex • 10-cube
10-demicube
n-polytopes
n-simplex
n-orthoplex • n-hypercube
n-demicube
Topics: Polytope families • Regular polytope • List of regular polytopes
Polyhedron - Mathematics
A polyhedron is any three-dimensional polytope. ... This definition of a polyhedron is not very precise, and to a modern mathematician is quite unsatisfactory. ...
polyhedron: Information from Answers.com
convex polyhedron — a polyhedron any plane section of which is a convex polygon ... pyramid — a polyhedron having a polygonal base and triangular sides with a common vertex ...



















