Platonic Solids

What is a Platonic Solid?

In geometry, Platonic Solids are regular polyhedra*, whose faces are congruent regular polygons and whose vertex configurations (the number and types of polygons meeting at each vertex) are the same at every vertex. Therefore, all the faces of a regular polyhedron will be identical and will be assembled in such away that the vertices are also identical.

Platonic solids are the only convex, three-dimensional geometrical figures to possess the unique qualities of possessing faces, edges, and angles which are all congruent over the entire body of the figure.

* Polyhedra is a Greek word meaning many faces.

A Brief History of Platonic Solids

The Platonic solids have been known since ancient times. Decorated models of them can be found among the carved stone balls created by the late Neolithic people of Scotland at least 1000 years before Plato and dice go back to the dawn of civilization. The ancient Greeks studied the Platonic solids extensively. Some sources credit Pythagoras with their discovery. Other evidence hints he may have only been familiar with the tetrahedron, cube, and dodecahedron, and that the discovery of the octahedron and icosahedron belong to Theaetetus, a contemporary of Plato. In any case, Theaetetus gave a mathematical description of all five and may have been responsible for the first known proof that there are no other convex regular polyhedra.

A Brief History of Platonic Solids (continued)

The Platonic Solids are featured prominently in the philosophy of Plato for whom they are named. Plato wrote about them in the dialogue Timaeus c.360 B.C. in which he associated each of the four classical elements (earth, air, water, and fire) with a regular solid. Earth was associated with the Cube, air with the Octahedron, water with the Icosahedron, fire with the Tetrahedron and the Universe with the Dodecahedron.

The Platonic Solids

~There Cube

are only five platonic solids~

Tetrahedron Octahedron Icosahedron

Dodecahedron

Why are There Only Five Platonic Solids?

A platonic solid has for each face a regular polygon congruent to every other face, with each vertex touching the same number of faces. This means that we only have to look at one vertex to see what happens at every vertex. Each vertex must touch at least three faces. Consider the number of edges of each face: 1. 3 edges per face, each face is an equilateral triangle, with interior angle 60 degrees. You can fit 3, 4, or 5 of these around a vertex, but since 360/60 = 6, you cannot fit 6 or more. A. Each vertex touches 3 faces. This is a tetrahedron. B. Each vertex touches 4 faces. This is an octahedron. C. Each vertex touches 5 faces. This is an icosahedron.

Why are There Only Five Platonic Solids (continued)

2. 4 edges per face, each face is a square, with interior angle 90 degrees. You can fit only 3 of these around a vertex, since 360/90 = 4. A. Each vertex touches 3 faces. This is a cube.
3. 5 edges per face, each face is a regular pentagon, with interior angle 108 degrees. Since 360/108 = 3.33..., you can only fit 3 of these around a vertex.

A. Each vertex touches 3 faces. This is a dodecahedron.

4. 6 or more edges per face, each face is a regular hexagon or more, with interior angle 120 degrees or more. Since 360/120 = 3, we cannot fit three of these around a vertex. This means that this case is impossible.

In all, there are just five cases possible.

Platonic Solids Must Have

1. All faces congruent. 2. All faces made of regular polygons. 3. The same number of faces meeting at each vertex.

tetrahedron (plural: tetrahedra) is a polyhedron composed of four triangular faces, three of which meet at each vertex. A regular tetrahedron is one in which the four triangles are regular, or "equilateral," and is one of the Platonic solids. The tetrahedron also has a beautiful and unique property all four vertices are the same distance from each other! The tetrahedron is also the only Platonic Solid with no parallel faces. Number of faces: 4 Shape of Face: Equilateral Triangle (3 sided)

Number of Faces at Each Vertex: 3

Number of Vertices: 4 Number of Edges: 6 Unfolded Polyhedron: Dihedral angles: 70 degrees, 32 minutes

Number of faces: 6 Shape of Face: Square (4 sided) Number of Faces at Each Vertex: 3 Number of Vertices: 8 Number of Edges: 12

Unfolded Polyhedron:
Dihedral angles: 90 degrees Sodium chloride (NaCl; common table salt) naturally forms cubic crystals. NaCl

Cubes make nice 6-sided dice, because they are regular in shape, and each face is the same size. In fact, you can make fair dice out of all of the Platonic Solids.

Number of faces: 8 Shape of Face: Equilateral Triangle (3 sided) Number of Faces at Each Vertex: 4 Number of Vertices: 16 Number of Edges: 12

Unfolded Polyhedron:
Dihedral angles: 109 degrees, 28 minutes

It is called an octahedron because it is a polyhedron that has 8 (octa-) faces.

Number of faces: 12 Shape of Face: Regular Pentagon (5-sided) Number of Faces at Each Vertex: 3 Number of Vertices: 20 Number of Edges: 30

Unfolded Polyhedron:
Dihedral angles: 116 degrees, 34 minutes

It is called a dodecahedron because it is a polyhedron that has 12 faces (from Greek dodeca- meaning 12).

Number of faces: 20

Shape of Face: Equilateral Triangle (3 sided)

Number of Faces at Each Vertex: 5 Number of Vertices: 12 Number of Edges: 30 Unfolded Polyhedron: Dihedral angles: 138 degrees, 11 minutes It is called an icosahedron because it is a polyhedron that has 20 faces (from Greek icosa- meaning 20)

Schlfli Notation
Schlfli Notation is named after the 19th-century mathematician Ludwig Schlfli who made important contributions in geometry and other areas. Platonic Solids are often described using the Schlfli Notation (p,q). Here, p is the number of edges on each face and the q is the number of faces that meet at each vertex. Schlfli Notation is useful because a given Schlfli symbol can only describe one Platonic Solid.

Schlfli Notation
Tetrahedron {3, 3} Dodecahedron {5, 3} Cube {4, 3}

Octahedron {3, 4}

Icosahedron {3, 5}

Coxeter, H. S. M., Introduction to Geometry, John Wiley (Edition 2) 1969, Chapter 10. MathWorld: http://mathworld.wolfram.com/PlatonicSolid.html www.learner.org/interactives/geometry/platonic.html H www.3quarks.com/en/PlatonicSolids/index.html

www.enchantedlearning.com/math/geometry/solids/
www.mathsisfun.com/platonic_solids.html math.youngzones.org/PlatonicSolids.html www.youtube.com/watch?v=C36h00d7xGsps :http://encyclopedia.kids.net.au/page/pl/Platonic_solid