geometry Geometry (; ) is, with arithmetic, one of the oldest branches of mathematics. It is concerned with properties of space such as the distance, shape, size, and relative position of figures. A mathematician who works in the field of geometry is c ...

, a bicupola is a solid formed by connecting two cupolae on their bases. There are two classes of bicupola because each cupola (bicupola half) is bordered by alternating triangles and squares. If similar faces are attached together the result is an ''orthobicupola''; if squares are attached to triangles it is a ''gyrobicupola''. Cupolae and bicupolae categorically exist as infinite sets of polyhedra, just like the

pyramid A pyramid (from el, πυραμίς ') is a structure whose outer surfaces are triangular and converge to a single step at the top, making the shape roughly a pyramid in the geometric sense. The base of a pyramid can be trilateral, quadrilat ...

bipyramid A (symmetric) -gonal bipyramid or dipyramid is a polyhedron formed by joining an -gonal pyramid and its mirror image base-to-base. An -gonal bipyramid has triangle faces, edges, and vertices. The "-gonal" in the name of a bipyramid does not ...

s, prisms, and trapezohedra. Six bicupolae have regular polygon faces: triangular, square and

pentagon In geometry, a pentagon (from the Greek πέντε ''pente'' meaning ''five'' and γωνία ''gonia'' meaning ''angle'') is any five-sided polygon or 5-gon. The sum of the internal angles in a simple pentagon is 540°. A pentagon may be simpl ...

al ortho- and gyrobicupolae. The triangular gyrobicupola is an

Archimedean solid In geometry, an Archimedean solid is one of the 13 solids first enumerated by Archimedes. They are the convex uniform polyhedra composed of regular polygons meeting in identical vertices, excluding the five Platonic solids (which are composed ...

, the cuboctahedron; the other five are

Johnson solid In geometry, a Johnson solid is a strictly convex polyhedron each face of which is a regular polygon. There is no requirement that isohedral, each face must be the same polygon, or that the same polygons join around each Vertex (geometry), ver ...

s. Bicupolae of higher order can be constructed if the flank faces are allowed to stretch into

rectangle In Euclidean plane geometry, a rectangle is a quadrilateral with four right angles. It can also be defined as: an equiangular quadrilateral, since equiangular means that all of its angles are equal (360°/4 = 90°); or a parallelogram containi ...

s and

isosceles triangle In geometry, an isosceles triangle () is a triangle that has two sides of equal length. Sometimes it is specified as having ''exactly'' two sides of equal length, and sometimes as having ''at least'' two sides of equal length, the latter versio ...

s. Bicupolae are special in having four faces on every vertex. This means that their dual polyhedra will have all quadrilateral faces. The best known example is the rhombic dodecahedron composed of 12 rhombic faces. The dual of the ortho-form,

triangular orthobicupola In geometry, the triangular orthobicupola is one of the Johnson solids (). As the name suggests, it can be constructed by attaching two triangular cupolas () along their bases. It has an equal number of squares and triangles at each vertex; howev ...

, is also a dodecahedron, similar to ''rhombic dodecahedron'', but it has 6 trapezoid faces which alternate long and short edges around the circumference.

Forms

Set of orthobicupolae

Set of gyrobicupolae

A -gonal gyrobicupola has the same topology as a -gonal rectified antiprism, Conway polyhedron notation, .

References

Norman W. Johnson Norman Woodason Johnson () was a mathematician at Wheaton College, Norton, Massachusetts. Early life and education Norman Johnson was born on in Chicago. His father had a bookstore and published a local newspaper. Johnson earned his unde ...

, "Convex Solids with Regular Faces", Canadian Journal of Mathematics, 18, 1966, pages 169–200. Contains the original enumeration of the 92 solids and the conjecture that there are no others. * The first proof that there are only 92 Johnson solids. {{DEFAULTSORT:Bicupola Polyhedra