Polyhedrons or Polyhedra

A polyhedron is a solid formed by flat

surfaces.
We are going to look at regular convex
polyhedrons:
 “regular” refers to the fact that every face, every
edge length, every facial angle, and every dihedral
angle (angle between two faces) are equal to all
the others that constitute the polyhedron.
 “convex” refers to the fact that all of the sides of
the shapes are flat planes, i.e., they are not
“concave”, or dented in.
 Characteristics of Regular
Convex Polyhedra
Each face is congruent to all others
Each face is regular
Each face meets the others in exactly the
same way

So how many regular polyhedra are there?

The History of the Platonic
Solids

April 11, 2005

Video
Pull out your video chart quiz and fill it in
as the video is played.
The answers will not be as obvious as
our last videos, so pay attention!
You will need this information for your
quiz on Friday!
A History of Platonic Solids
There are five regular polyhedra that
were discovered by the ancient Greeks.

The Pythagoreans knew of the

tetrahedron, the cube, and the
dodecahedron; the mathematician
Theaetetus added the octahedron and
the icosahedron.
These shapes are called the Platonic solids, after the
ancient Greek philosopher Plato; Plato, who greatly
respected Theaetetus' work, speculated that these five
solids were the shapes of the fundamental components of
the physical universe
 Tetrahedron

The tetrahedron is bounded by four

equilateral triangles. It has the smallest
volume for its surface and represents the
property of dryness. It corresponds to fire.
Hexahedron

The hexahedron is bounded by six squares.

The hexahedron, standing firmly on its base,
corresponds to the stable earth.
Octahedron

The octahedron is bounded by eight

equilateral triangles. It rotates freely
when held by two opposite vertices and
corresponds to air.
Dodecahedron

The dodecahedron is bounded by twelve

equilateral pentagons. It corresponds to the
universe because the zodiac has twelve signs
corresponding to the twelve faces of the
dodecahedron.
Icosahedron

The icosahedron is bounded by twenty

equilateral triangles. It has the largest volume
for its surface area and represents the
property of wetness. The icosahedron
corresponds to water.
The Archimedean Solids
April 7, 2003
 The 13 Archimedean Solids
All these solids were described by Archimedes, although, his
original writings on the topic were lost and only known of second-
hand. Various artists gradually rediscovered all but one of these
polyhedra during the Renaissance, and Johannes Kepler finally
reconstructed the entire set.

A key characteristic of the Archimedean

solids is that each face is a regular polygon,
and around every vertex, the same polygons
appear in the same sequence, e.g., hexagon-
hexagon-triangle in the truncated tetrahedron.
Two or more different polygons appear in each
of the Archimedean solids, unlike the Platonic
solids which each contain only a single type of
polygon. The polyhedron is required to be
convex.
Truncated Tetrahedron
Truncated Octahedron
Truncated Cube
Cuboctahedron
Great Rhombicuboctahedron
Small Rhombicuboctahedron
Snub Cube
Truncated Icosahedron
Truncated Dodecahedron
Icosidodecahedron
Great Rhombicosidodecahedron
Small Rhombicosidodecahedron
Snub Dodecahedron
Truncated Polyhedrons
The term truncated
refers to the process of cube
cutting off corners.
Truncation adds a new
face for each previously
existing vertex, and
replaces n-gons with 2n-
gons, e.g., octagons
instead of squares.
truncated cube
Snub Polyhedrons
The term snub can refer to
a process of replacing each
edge with a pair of triangles,
e.g., as a way of deriving
what is usually called the
snub cube from the cube.
The 6 square faces of the
cube remain squares (but
rotated slightly), the 12
edges become 24 triangles,
and the 8 vertices become
an additional 8 triangles.
April Project
http://www.scienceu.com/geometry/classroom
/buildicosa/index.html
This is the website that contains directions to
your April Project: “Building an Icosahedron”.
 Your group is going to build one big Platonic solid,
the icosahedron.
 You will have two class periods to work together.
 This project is due April 30th.