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 polyhedron (plural polyhedra or polyhedrons; ) is a
three-dimensional
Three-dimensional space (also: 3D space, 3-space or, rarely, tri-dimensional space) is a geometric setting in which three values (called ''parameters'') are required to determine the position of an element (i.e., point). This is the informal ...
shape with flat
polygon
In geometry, a polygon () is a plane figure that is described by a finite number of straight line segments connected to form a closed ''polygonal chain'' (or ''polygonal circuit''). The bounded plane region, the bounding circuit, or the two toge ...
al
faces
The face is the front of an animal's head that features the eyes, nose and mouth, and through which animals express many of their emotions. The face is crucial for human identity, and damage such as scarring or developmental deformities may affe ...
convex polyhedron
A convex polytope is a special case of a polytope, having the additional property that it is also a convex set contained in the n-dimensional Euclidean space \mathbb^n. Most texts. use the term "polytope" for a bounded convex polytope, and the wo ...
is the
convex hull
In geometry, the convex hull or convex envelope or convex closure of a shape is the smallest convex set that contains it. The convex hull may be defined either as the intersection of all convex sets containing a given subset of a Euclidean space ...
of finitely many points, not all on the same plane.
Cube
In geometry, a cube is a three-dimensional solid object bounded by six square faces, facets or sides, with three meeting at each vertex. Viewed from a corner it is a hexagon and its net is usually depicted as a cross.
The cube is the only r ...
s and
pyramids
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, quadrilate ...
are examples of convex polyhedra.
A polyhedron is a 3-dimensional example of a
polytope
In elementary geometry, a polytope is a geometric object with flat sides (''faces''). Polytopes are the generalization of three-dimensional polyhedra to any number of dimensions. Polytopes may exist in any general number of dimensions as an -d ...
, a more general concept in any number of dimensions.
Definition
Convex polyhedra
A convex polytope is a special case of a polytope, having the additional property that it is also a convex set contained in the n-dimensional Euclidean space \mathbb^n. Most texts. use the term "polytope" for a bounded convex polytope, and the wo ...
are well-defined, with several equivalent standard definitions. However, the formal mathematical definition of polyhedra that are not required to be convex has been problematic.
Many definitions of "polyhedron" have been given within particular contexts,. some more rigorous than others, and there is not universal agreement over which of these to choose.
Some of these definitions exclude shapes that have often been counted as polyhedra (such as the self-crossing polyhedra) or include
shapes that are often not considered as valid polyhedra (such as solids whose boundaries are not
manifold
In mathematics, a manifold is a topological space that locally resembles Euclidean space near each point. More precisely, an n-dimensional manifold, or ''n-manifold'' for short, is a topological space with the property that each point has a n ...
s). As
Branko Grünbaum
Branko Grünbaum ( he, ברנקו גרונבאום; 2 October 1929 – 14 September 2018) was a Croatian-born mathematician of Jewish descentvertices (corner points), edges (line segments connecting certain pairs of vertices),
faces
The face is the front of an animal's head that features the eyes, nose and mouth, and through which animals express many of their emotions. The face is crucial for human identity, and damage such as scarring or developmental deformities may affe ...
(two-dimensional
polygon
In geometry, a polygon () is a plane figure that is described by a finite number of straight line segments connected to form a closed ''polygonal chain'' (or ''polygonal circuit''). The bounded plane region, the bounding circuit, or the two toge ...
s), and that it sometimes can be said to have a particular three-dimensional interior
volume
Volume is a measure of occupied three-dimensional space. It is often quantified numerically using SI derived units (such as the cubic metre and litre) or by various imperial or US customary units (such as the gallon, quart, cubic inch). The de ...
.
One can distinguish among these different definitions according to whether they describe the polyhedron as a solid, whether they describe it as a surface, or whether they describe it more abstractly based on its
incidence geometry
In mathematics, incidence geometry is the study of incidence structures. A geometric structure such as the Euclidean plane is a complicated object that involves concepts such as length, angles, continuity, betweenness, and incidence. An ''incidenc ...
.
* A common and somewhat naive definition of a polyhedron is that it is a solid whose boundary can be covered by finitely many planes or that it is a solid formed as the union of finitely many convex polyhedra. Natural refinements of this definition require the solid to be bounded, to have a connected interior, and possibly also to have a connected boundary. The faces of such a polyhedron can be defined as the connected components of the parts of the boundary within each of the planes that cover it, and the edges and vertices as the line segments and points where the faces meet. However, the polyhedra defined in this way do not include the self-crossing star polyhedra, whose faces may not form
simple polygon
In geometry, a simple polygon is a polygon that does not Intersection (Euclidean geometry), intersect itself and has no holes. That is, it is a flat shape consisting of straight, non-intersecting line segments or "sides" that are joined pairwise ...
s, and some of whose edges may belong to more than two faces.
* Definitions based on the idea of a bounding surface rather than a solid are also common.Cromwell (1997), pp. 206–209. For instance, defines a polyhedron as a union of
convex polygon
In geometry, a convex polygon is a polygon that is the boundary of a convex set. This means that the line segment between two points of the polygon is contained in the union of the interior and the boundary of the polygon. In particular, it is a ...
s (its faces), arranged in space so that the intersection of any two polygons is a shared vertex or edge or the
empty set
In mathematics, the empty set is the unique set having no elements; its size or cardinality (count of elements in a set) is zero. Some axiomatic set theories ensure that the empty set exists by including an axiom of empty set, while in other ...
and so that their union is a
manifold
In mathematics, a manifold is a topological space that locally resembles Euclidean space near each point. More precisely, an n-dimensional manifold, or ''n-manifold'' for short, is a topological space with the property that each point has a n ...
. If a planar part of such a surface is not itself a convex polygon, O'Rourke requires it to be subdivided into smaller convex polygons, with flat
dihedral angle
A dihedral angle is the angle between two intersecting planes or half-planes. In chemistry, it is the clockwise angle between half-planes through two sets of three atoms, having two atoms in common. In solid geometry, it is defined as the uni ...
s between them. Somewhat more generally, Grünbaum defines an ''acoptic polyhedron'' to be a collection of simple polygons that form an embedded manifold, with each vertex incident to at least three edges and each two faces intersecting only in shared vertices and edges of each.. Cromwell's ''
Polyhedra
In geometry, a polyhedron (plural polyhedra or polyhedrons; ) is a three-dimensional shape with flat polygonal faces, straight edges and sharp corners or vertices.
A convex polyhedron is the convex hull of finitely many points, not all on t ...
'' gives a similar definition but without the restriction of at least three edges per vertex. Again, this type of definition does not encompass the self-crossing polyhedra. Similar notions form the basis of topological definitions of polyhedra, as subdivisions of a topological manifold into topological disks (the faces) whose pairwise intersections are required to be points (vertices), topological arcs (edges), or the empty set. However, there exist topological polyhedra (even with all faces triangles) that cannot be realized as acoptic polyhedra.
* One modern approach is based on the theory of abstract polyhedra. These can be defined as
partially ordered set
In mathematics, especially order theory, a partially ordered set (also poset) formalizes and generalizes the intuitive concept of an ordering, sequencing, or arrangement of the elements of a Set (mathematics), set. A poset consists of a set toget ...
s whose elements are the vertices, edges, and faces of a polyhedron. A vertex or edge element is less than an edge or face element (in this partial order) when the vertex or edge is part of the edge or face. Additionally, one may include a special bottom element of this partial order (representing the empty set) and a top element representing the whole polyhedron. If the sections of the partial order between elements three levels apart (that is, between each face and the bottom element, and between the top element and each vertex) have the same structure as the abstract representation of a polygon, then these partially ordered sets carry exactly the same information as a topological polyhedron. However, these requirements are often relaxed, to instead require only that sections between elements two levels apart have the same structure as the abstract representation of a line segment.. (This means that each edge contains two vertices and belongs to two faces, and that each vertex on a face belongs to two edges of that face.) Geometric polyhedra, defined in other ways, can be described abstractly in this way, but it is also possible to use abstract polyhedra as the basis of a definition of geometric polyhedra. A ''realization'' of an abstract polyhedron is generally taken to be a mapping from the vertices of the abstract polyhedron to geometric points, such that the points of each face are coplanar. A geometric polyhedron can then be defined as a realization of an abstract polyhedron. Realizations that omit the requirement of face planarity, that impose additional requirements of symmetry, or that map the vertices to higher dimensional spaces have also been considered. Unlike the solid-based and surface-based definitions, this works perfectly well for star polyhedra. However, without additional restrictions, this definition allows
degenerate
Degeneracy, degenerate, or degeneration may refer to:
Arts and entertainment
* Degenerate (album), ''Degenerate'' (album), a 2010 album by the British band Trigger the Bloodshed
* Degenerate art, a term adopted in the 1920s by the Nazi Party i ...
or unfaithful polyhedra (for instance, by mapping all vertices to a single point) and the question of how to constrain realizations to avoid these degeneracies has not been settled.
In all of these definitions, a polyhedron is typically understood as a three-dimensional example of the more general
polytope
In elementary geometry, a polytope is a geometric object with flat sides (''faces''). Polytopes are the generalization of three-dimensional polyhedra to any number of dimensions. Polytopes may exist in any general number of dimensions as an -d ...
in any number of dimensions. For example, a polygon has a two-dimensional body and no faces, while a 4-polytope has a four-dimensional body and an additional set of three-dimensional "cells".
However, some of the literature on higher-dimensional geometry uses the term "polyhedron" to mean something else: not a three-dimensional polytope, but a shape that is different from a polytope in some way. For instance, some sources define a convex polyhedron to be the intersection of finitely many half-spaces, and a polytope to be a bounded polyhedron... The remainder of this article considers only three-dimensional polyhedra.
Characteristics
Number of faces
Polyhedra may be classified and are often named according to the number of faces. The naming system is based on Classical Greek, and combines a prefix counting the faces with the suffix "hedron", meaning "base" or "seat" and referring to the faces. For example a
tetrahedron
In geometry, a tetrahedron (plural: tetrahedra or tetrahedrons), also known as a triangular pyramid, is a polyhedron composed of four triangular faces, six straight edges, and four vertex corners. The tetrahedron is the simplest of all the o ...
is a polyhedron with four faces, a pentahedron is a polyhedron with five faces, a
hexahedron
A hexahedron (plural: hexahedra or hexahedrons) or sexahedron (plural: sexahedra or sexahedrons) is any polyhedron with six faces. A cube, for example, is a regular hexahedron with all its faces square, and three squares around each vertex.
There ...
is a polyhedron with six faces, etc. For a complete list of the Greek numeral prefixes see , in the column for Greek cardinal numbers. The names of tetrahedra, hexahedra, octahedra (8-sided polyhedra), dodecahedra (12-sided polyhedra), and icosahedra (20-sided polyhedra) are sometimes used without additional qualification to refer to the
Platonic solid
In geometry, a Platonic solid is a convex, regular polyhedron in three-dimensional Euclidean space. Being a regular polyhedron means that the faces are congruent (identical in shape and size) regular polygons (all angles congruent and all edges c ...
s, and sometimes used to refer more generally to polyhedra with the given number of sides without any assumption of symmetry.
Topological classification
Some polyhedra have two distinct sides to their surface. For example, the inside and outside of a
convex polyhedron
A convex polytope is a special case of a polytope, having the additional property that it is also a convex set contained in the n-dimensional Euclidean space \mathbb^n. Most texts. use the term "polytope" for a bounded convex polytope, and the wo ...
paper model can each be given a different colour (although the inside colour will be hidden from view). These polyhedra are
orientable
In mathematics, orientability is a property of some topological spaces such as real vector spaces, Euclidean spaces, surfaces, and more generally manifolds that allows a consistent definition of "clockwise" and "counterclockwise". A space is ...
. The same is true for non-convex polyhedra without self-crossings. Some non-convex self-crossing polyhedra can be coloured in the same way but have regions turned "inside out" so that both colours appear on the outside in different places; these are still considered to be orientable. However, for some other self-crossing polyhedra with simple-polygon faces, such as the
tetrahemihexahedron
In geometry, the tetrahemihexahedron or hemicuboctahedron is a uniform star polyhedron, indexed as U4. It has 7 faces (4 triangles and 3 squares), 12 edges, and 6 vertices. Its vertex figure is a crossed quadrilateral. Its Coxeter–Dynkin dia ...
, it is not possible to colour the two sides of each face with two different colours so that adjacent faces have consistent colours.
In this case the polyhedron is said to be non-orientable. For polyhedra with self-crossing faces, it may not be clear what it means for adjacent faces to be consistently coloured, but for these polyhedra it is still possible to determine whether it is orientable or non-orientable by considering a topological
cell complex
A CW complex (also called cellular complex or cell complex) is a kind of a topological space that is particularly important in algebraic topology. It was introduced by J. H. C. Whitehead (open access) to meet the needs of homotopy theory. This cl ...
with the same incidences between its vertices, edges, and faces.
A more subtle distinction between polyhedron surfaces is given by their
Euler characteristic
In mathematics, and more specifically in algebraic topology and polyhedral combinatorics, the Euler characteristic (or Euler number, or Euler–Poincaré characteristic) is a topological invariant, a number that describes a topological space ...
, which combines the numbers of vertices , edges , and faces of a polyhedron into a single number defined by the formula
:
The same formula is also used for the Euler characteristic of other kinds of topological surfaces. It is an invariant of the surface, meaning that when a single surface is subdivided into vertices, edges, and faces in more than one way, the Euler characteristic will be the same for these subdivisions. For a convex polyhedron, or more generally any simply connected polyhedron with surface a topological sphere, it always equals 2. For more complicated shapes, the Euler characteristic relates to the number of
toroid
In mathematics, a toroid is a surface of revolution with a hole in the middle. The axis of revolution passes through the hole and so does not intersect the surface. For example, when a rectangle is rotated around an axis parallel to one of its ...
al holes, handles or cross-caps in the surface and will be less than 2.
All polyhedra with odd-numbered Euler characteristic are non-orientable. A given figure with even Euler characteristic may or may not be orientable. For example, the one-holed
toroid
In mathematics, a toroid is a surface of revolution with a hole in the middle. The axis of revolution passes through the hole and so does not intersect the surface. For example, when a rectangle is rotated around an axis parallel to one of its ...
and the
Klein bottle
In topology, a branch of mathematics, the Klein bottle () is an example of a non-orientable surface; it is a two-dimensional manifold against which a system for determining a normal vector cannot be consistently defined. Informally, it is a o ...
both have , with the first being orientable and the other not.
For many (but not all) ways of defining polyhedra, the surface of the polyhedron is required to be a
manifold
In mathematics, a manifold is a topological space that locally resembles Euclidean space near each point. More precisely, an n-dimensional manifold, or ''n-manifold'' for short, is a topological space with the property that each point has a n ...
. This means that every edge is part of the boundary of exactly two faces (disallowing shapes like the union of two cubes that meet only along a shared edge) and that every vertex is incident to a single alternating cycle of edges and faces (disallowing shapes like the union of two cubes sharing only a single vertex). For polyhedra defined in these ways, the classification of manifolds implies that the topological type of the surface is completely determined by the combination of its Euler characteristic and orientability. For example, every polyhedron whose surface is an orientable manifold and whose Euler characteristic is 2 must be a topological sphere.
A
toroidal polyhedron
In geometry, a toroidal polyhedron is a polyhedron which is also a toroid (a -holed torus), having a topological genus () of 1 or greater. Notable examples include the Császár and Szilassi polyhedra.
Variations in definition
Toroidal polyhedr ...
is a polyhedron whose
Euler characteristic
In mathematics, and more specifically in algebraic topology and polyhedral combinatorics, the Euler characteristic (or Euler number, or Euler–Poincaré characteristic) is a topological invariant, a number that describes a topological space ...
is less than or equal to 0, or equivalently whose
genus
Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus com ...
is 1 or greater. Topologically, the surfaces of such polyhedra are
torus
In geometry, a torus (plural tori, colloquially donut or doughnut) is a surface of revolution generated by revolving a circle in three-dimensional space about an axis that is coplanar with the circle.
If the axis of revolution does not tou ...
surfaces having one or more holes through the middle.
Duality
For every convex polyhedron, there exists a dual polyhedron having
* faces in place of the original's vertices and vice versa, and
* the same number of edges.
The dual of a convex polyhedron can be obtained by the process of
polar reciprocation
In geometry, a pole and polar are respectively a point and a line that have a unique reciprocal relationship with respect to a given conic section.
Polar reciprocation in a given circle is the transformation of each point in the plane into it ...
. Dual polyhedra exist in pairs, and the dual of a dual is just the original polyhedron again. Some polyhedra are self-dual, meaning that the dual of the polyhedron is congruent to the original polyhedron.
Abstract polyhedra also have duals, obtained by reversing the
partial order
In mathematics, especially order theory, a partially ordered set (also poset) formalizes and generalizes the intuitive concept of an ordering, sequencing, or arrangement of the elements of a set. A poset consists of a set together with a binary ...
defining the polyhedron to obtain its dual or opposite order. These have the same Euler characteristic and orientability as the initial polyhedron. However, this form of duality does not describe the shape of a dual polyhedron, but only its combinatorial structure. For some definitions of non-convex geometric polyhedra, there exist polyhedra whose abstract duals cannot be realized as geometric polyhedra under the same definition.
Vertex figures
For every vertex one can define a
vertex figure
In geometry, a vertex figure, broadly speaking, is the figure exposed when a corner of a polyhedron or polytope is sliced off.
Definitions
Take some corner or Vertex (geometry), vertex of a polyhedron. Mark a point somewhere along each connect ...
, which describes the local structure of the polyhedron around the vertex. Precise definitions vary, but a vertex figure can be thought of as the polygon exposed where a slice through the polyhedron cuts off a corner.
Surface area and distances
The
surface area
The surface area of a solid object is a measure of the total area that the surface of the object occupies. The mathematical definition of surface area in the presence of curved surfaces is considerably more involved than the definition of arc ...
of a polyhedron is the sum of areas of its faces, for definitions of polyhedra for which the area of a face is well-defined.
The
geodesic
In geometry, a geodesic () is a curve representing in some sense the shortest path ( arc) between two points in a surface, or more generally in a Riemannian manifold. The term also has meaning in any differentiable manifold with a connection. ...
distance between any two points on the surface of a polyhedron measures the length of the shortest curve that connects the two points, remaining within the surface. By
Alexandrov's uniqueness theorem
The Alexandrov uniqueness theorem is a rigidity theorem in mathematics, describing three-dimensional convex polyhedra in terms of the distances between points on their surfaces. It implies that convex polyhedra with distinct shapes from each othe ...
, every convex polyhedron is uniquely determined by the
metric space
In mathematics, a metric space is a set together with a notion of ''distance'' between its elements, usually called points. The distance is measured by a function called a metric or distance function. Metric spaces are the most general settin ...
of geodesic distances on its surface. However, non-convex polyhedra can have the same surface distances as each other, or the same as certain convex polyhedra.
Volume
Polyhedral solids have an associated quantity called
volume
Volume is a measure of occupied three-dimensional space. It is often quantified numerically using SI derived units (such as the cubic metre and litre) or by various imperial or US customary units (such as the gallon, quart, cubic inch). The de ...
that measures how much space they occupy. Simple families of solids may have simple formulas for their volumes; for example, the volumes of pyramids, prisms, and
parallelepiped
In geometry, a parallelepiped is a three-dimensional figure formed by six parallelograms (the term ''rhomboid'' is also sometimes used with this meaning). By analogy, it relates to a parallelogram just as a cube relates to a square. In Euclidea ...
s can easily be expressed in terms of their edge lengths or other coordinates. (See Volume § Volume formulas for a list that includes many of these formulas.)
Volumes of more complicated polyhedra may not have simple formulas. Volumes of such polyhedra may be computed by subdividing the polyhedron into smaller pieces (for example, by
triangulation
In trigonometry and geometry, triangulation is the process of determining the location of a point by forming triangles to the point from known points.
Applications
In surveying
Specifically in surveying, triangulation involves only angle me ...
pyramids
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, quadrilate ...
, with each pyramid having a face of the polyhedron as its base and the centre of the polyhedron as its apex.
In general, it can be derived from the
divergence theorem
In vector calculus, the divergence theorem, also known as Gauss's theorem or Ostrogradsky's theorem, reprinted in is a theorem which relates the ''flux'' of a vector field through a closed surface to the ''divergence'' of the field in the vol ...
that the volume of a polyhedral solid is given by
where the sum is over faces of the polyhedron, is an arbitrary point on face , is the
unit vector
In mathematics, a unit vector in a normed vector space is a vector (often a spatial vector) of length 1. A unit vector is often denoted by a lowercase letter with a circumflex, or "hat", as in \hat (pronounced "v-hat").
The term ''direction vecto ...
perpendicular to pointing outside the solid, and the multiplication dot is the
dot product
In mathematics, the dot product or scalar productThe term ''scalar product'' means literally "product with a scalar as a result". It is also used sometimes for other symmetric bilinear forms, for example in a pseudo-Euclidean space. is an algebra ...
. In higher dimensions, volume computation may be challenging, in part because of the difficulty of listing the faces of a convex polyhedron specified only by its vertices, and there exist specialized
algorithm
In mathematics and computer science, an algorithm () is a finite sequence of rigorous instructions, typically used to solve a class of specific Computational problem, problems or to perform a computation. Algorithms are used as specificat ...
Hilbert's third problem
The third of Hilbert's list of mathematical problems, presented in 1900, was the first to be solved. The problem is related to the following question: given any two polyhedra of equal volume, is it always possible to cut the first into finitely m ...
.
Max Dehn
Max Wilhelm Dehn (November 13, 1878 – June 27, 1952) was a German mathematician most famous for his work in geometry, topology and geometric group theory. Born to a Jewish family in Germany, Dehn's early life and career took place in Germany. ...
solved this problem by showing that, unlike in the 2-D case, there exist polyhedra of the same volume that cannot be cut into smaller polyhedra and reassembled into each other. To prove this Dehn discovered another value associated with a polyhedron, the
Dehn invariant
In geometry, the Dehn invariant is a value used to determine whether one polyhedron can be cut into pieces and reassembled ("dissection problem, dissected") into another, and whether a polyhedron or its dissections can Honeycomb (geometry), tile s ...
, such that two polyhedra can only be dissected into each other when they have the same volume and the same Dehn invariant. It was later proven by Sydler that this is the only obstacle to dissection: every two Euclidean polyhedra with the same volumes and Dehn invariants can be cut up and reassembled into each other. The Dehn invariant is not a number, but a
vector
Vector most often refers to:
*Euclidean vector, a quantity with a magnitude and a direction
*Vector (epidemiology), an agent that carries and transmits an infectious pathogen into another living organism
Vector may also refer to:
Mathematic ...
in an infinite-dimensional vector space, determined from the lengths and
dihedral angle
A dihedral angle is the angle between two intersecting planes or half-planes. In chemistry, it is the clockwise angle between half-planes through two sets of three atoms, having two atoms in common. In solid geometry, it is defined as the uni ...
s of a polyhedron's edges.
Another of Hilbert's problems, Hilbert's 18th problem, concerns (among other things) polyhedra that tile space. Every such polyhedron must have Dehn invariant zero. The Dehn invariant has also been connected to
flexible polyhedra
In geometry, a flexible polyhedron is a polyhedral surface without any boundary edges, whose shape can be continuously changed while keeping the shapes of all of its faces unchanged. The Cauchy rigidity theorem shows that in dimension 3 such ...
by the strong bellows theorem, which states that the Dehn invariant of any flexible polyhedron remains invariant as it flexes.
Convex polyhedra
A three-dimensional solid is a
convex set
In geometry, a subset of a Euclidean space, or more generally an affine space over the reals, is convex if, given any two points in the subset, the subset contains the whole line segment that joins them. Equivalently, a convex set or a convex r ...
if it contains every line segment connecting two of its points. A
convex polyhedron
A convex polytope is a special case of a polytope, having the additional property that it is also a convex set contained in the n-dimensional Euclidean space \mathbb^n. Most texts. use the term "polytope" for a bounded convex polytope, and the wo ...
is a polyhedron that, as a solid, forms a convex set. A convex polyhedron can also be defined as a bounded intersection of finitely many half-spaces, or as the
convex hull
In geometry, the convex hull or convex envelope or convex closure of a shape is the smallest convex set that contains it. The convex hull may be defined either as the intersection of all convex sets containing a given subset of a Euclidean space ...
of finitely many points.
Important classes of convex polyhedra include the highly symmetrical
Platonic solid
In geometry, a Platonic solid is a convex, regular polyhedron in three-dimensional Euclidean space. Being a regular polyhedron means that the faces are congruent (identical in shape and size) regular polygons (all angles congruent and all edges c ...
s, the
Archimedean solids
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 compose ...
and their duals the
Catalan solid
In mathematics, a Catalan solid, or Archimedean dual, is a dual polyhedron to an Archimedean solid. There are 13 Catalan solids. They are named for the Belgian mathematician Eugène Catalan, who first described them in 1865.
The Catalan sol ...
s, and the regular-faced
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.
Symmetries
Many of the most studied polyhedra are highly
symmetrical
Symmetry (from grc, συμμετρία "agreement in dimensions, due proportion, arrangement") in everyday language refers to a sense of harmonious and beautiful proportion and balance. In mathematics, "symmetry" has a more precise definiti ...
, that is, their appearance is unchanged by some reflection or rotation of space. Each such symmetry may change the location of a given vertex, face, or edge, but the set of all vertices (likewise faces, edges) is unchanged. The collection of symmetries of a polyhedron is called its
symmetry group
In group theory, the symmetry group of a geometric object is the group of all transformations under which the object is invariant, endowed with the group operation of composition. Such a transformation is an invertible mapping of the ambient ...
.
All the elements that can be superimposed on each other by symmetries are said to form a symmetry orbit. For example, all the faces of a cube lie in one orbit, while all the edges lie in another. If all the elements of a given dimension, say all the faces, lie in the same orbit, the figure is said to be transitive on that orbit. For example, a cube is face-transitive, while a truncated cube has two symmetry orbits of faces.
The same abstract structure may support more or less symmetric geometric polyhedra. But where a polyhedral name is given, such as
icosidodecahedron
In geometry, an icosidodecahedron is a polyhedron with twenty (''icosi'') triangular faces and twelve (''dodeca'') pentagonal faces. An icosidodecahedron has 30 identical vertices, with two triangles and two pentagons meeting at each, and 60 id ...
, the most symmetrical geometry is almost always implied, unless otherwise stated.
There are several types of highly symmetric polyhedron, classified by which kind of element – faces, edges, or vertices – belong to a single symmetry orbit:
* Regular: vertex-transitive, edge-transitive and face-transitive. (This implies that every face is the same
regular polygon
In Euclidean geometry, a regular polygon is a polygon that is Equiangular polygon, direct equiangular (all angles are equal in measure) and Equilateral polygon, equilateral (all sides have the same length). Regular polygons may be either convex p ...
; it also implies that every vertex is regular.)
* Quasi-regular: 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: 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.) These polyhedra include the semiregular prisms and
antiprism
In geometry, an antiprism or is a polyhedron composed of two parallel direct copies (not mirror images) of an polygon, connected by an alternating band of triangles. They are represented by the Conway notation .
Antiprisms are a subclass o ...
s. A semi-regular dual is face-transitive but not vertex-transitive, and every vertex is regular.
*
Uniform
A uniform is a variety of clothing worn by members of an organization while participating in that organization's activity. Modern uniforms are most often worn by armed forces and paramilitary organizations such as police, emergency services, se ...
: 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.
* Isogonal: vertex-transitive.
* Isotoxal: edge-transitive.
*
Isohedral
In geometry, a tessellation of dimension (a plane tiling) or higher, or a polytope of dimension (a polyhedron) or higher, is isohedral or face-transitive if all its faces are the same. More specifically, all faces must be not merely congruent ...
: face-transitive.
*
Noble
A noble is a member of the nobility.
Noble may also refer to:
Places Antarctica
* Noble Glacier, King George Island
* Noble Nunatak, Marie Byrd Land
* Noble Peak, Wiencke Island
* Noble Rocks, Graham Land
Australia
* Noble Island, Great B ...
: face-transitive and vertex-transitive (but not necessarily edge-transitive). The regular polyhedra are also noble; they are the only noble uniform polyhedra. The duals of noble polyhedra are themselves noble.
Some classes of polyhedra have only a single main axis of symmetry. These include the
pyramids
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, quadrilate ...
,
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,
trapezohedra
In geometry, an trapezohedron, -trapezohedron, -antidipyramid, -antibipyramid, or -deltohedron is the dual polyhedron of an antiprism. The faces of an are congruent and symmetrically staggered; they are called ''twisted kites''. With a hi ...
, cupolae, as well as the semiregular prisms and antiprisms.
Regular polyhedra
Regular polyhedra are the most highly symmetrical. Altogether there are nine regular polyhedra: five convex and four star polyhedra.
The five convex examples have been known since antiquity and are called the
Platonic solids
In geometry, a Platonic solid is a convex, regular polyhedron in three-dimensional Euclidean space. Being a regular polyhedron means that the faces are congruent (identical in shape and size) regular polygons (all angles congruent and all edges c ...
. These are the triangular pyramid or
tetrahedron
In geometry, a tetrahedron (plural: tetrahedra or tetrahedrons), also known as a triangular pyramid, is a polyhedron composed of four triangular faces, six straight edges, and four vertex corners. The tetrahedron is the simplest of all the o ...
,
cube
In geometry, a cube is a three-dimensional solid object bounded by six square faces, facets or sides, with three meeting at each vertex. Viewed from a corner it is a hexagon and its net is usually depicted as a cross.
The cube is the only r ...
,
octahedron
In geometry, an octahedron (plural: octahedra, octahedrons) is a polyhedron with eight faces. The term is most commonly used to refer to the regular octahedron, a Platonic solid composed of eight equilateral triangles, four of which meet at ea ...
,
dodecahedron
In geometry, a dodecahedron (Greek , from ''dōdeka'' "twelve" + ''hédra'' "base", "seat" or "face") or duodecahedron is any polyhedron with twelve flat faces. The most familiar dodecahedron is the regular dodecahedron with regular pentagon ...
and
icosahedron
In geometry, an icosahedron ( or ) is a polyhedron with 20 faces. The name comes and . The plural can be either "icosahedra" () or "icosahedrons".
There are infinitely many non- similar shapes of icosahedra, some of them being more symmetrica ...
:
There are also four regular star polyhedra, known as the Kepler–Poinsot polyhedra after their discoverers.
The dual of a regular polyhedron is also regular.
Uniform polyhedra and their duals
Uniform polyhedra are
vertex-transitive
In geometry, a polytope (e.g. a polygon or polyhedron) or a tiling is isogonal or vertex-transitive if all its vertices are equivalent under the symmetries of the figure. This implies that each vertex is surrounded by the same kinds of face in ...
and every face is a
regular polygon
In Euclidean geometry, a regular polygon is a polygon that is Equiangular polygon, direct equiangular (all angles are equal in measure) and Equilateral polygon, equilateral (all sides have the same length). Regular polygons may be either convex p ...
.
They may be subdivided into the regular, quasi-regular, or semi-regular, and may be convex or starry.
The duals of the uniform polyhedra have irregular faces but are
face-transitive
In geometry, a tessellation of dimension (a plane tiling) or higher, or a polytope of dimension (a polyhedron) or higher, is isohedral or face-transitive if all its faces are the same. More specifically, all faces must be not merely congruent ...
, and every
vertex figure
In geometry, a vertex figure, broadly speaking, is the figure exposed when a corner of a polyhedron or polytope is sliced off.
Definitions
Take some corner or Vertex (geometry), vertex of a polyhedron. Mark a point somewhere along each connect ...
is a regular polygon. A uniform polyhedron has the same symmetry orbits as its dual, with the faces and vertices simply swapped over. The duals of the convex Archimedean polyhedra are sometimes called the
Catalan solid
In mathematics, a Catalan solid, or Archimedean dual, is a dual polyhedron to an Archimedean solid. There are 13 Catalan solids. They are named for the Belgian mathematician Eugène Catalan, who first described them in 1865.
The Catalan sol ...
s.
The uniform polyhedra and their duals are traditionally classified according to their degree of symmetry, and whether they are
convex
Convex or convexity may refer to:
Science and technology
* Convex lens, in optics
Mathematics
* Convex set, containing the whole line segment that joins points
** Convex polygon, a polygon which encloses a convex set of points
** Convex polytope ...
or not.
Isohedra
An isohedron is a polyhedron with symmetries acting transitively on its faces. Their topology can be represented by a
Platonic solids
In geometry, a Platonic solid is a convex, regular polyhedron in three-dimensional Euclidean space. Being a regular polyhedron means that the faces are congruent (identical in shape and size) regular polygons (all angles congruent and all edges c ...
and 13
Catalan solid
In mathematics, a Catalan solid, or Archimedean dual, is a dual polyhedron to an Archimedean solid. There are 13 Catalan solids. They are named for the Belgian mathematician Eugène Catalan, who first described them in 1865.
The Catalan sol ...
s are isohedra, as well as the infinite families of
trapezohedra
In geometry, an trapezohedron, -trapezohedron, -antidipyramid, -antibipyramid, or -deltohedron is the dual polyhedron of an antiprism. The faces of an are congruent and symmetrically staggered; they are called ''twisted kites''. With a hi ...
and
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. Some isohedra allow geometric variations including concave and self-intersecting forms.
Symmetry groups
Many of the symmetries or
point groups in three dimensions
In geometry, a point group in three dimensions is an isometry group in three dimensions that leaves the origin fixed, or correspondingly, an isometry group of a sphere. It is a subgroup of the orthogonal group O(3), the group of all isometries tha ...
are named after polyhedra having the associated symmetry. These include:
* T – chiral
tetrahedral symmetry
150px, A regular tetrahedron, an example of a solid with full tetrahedral symmetry
A regular tetrahedron has 12 rotational (or orientation-preserving) symmetries, and a symmetry order of 24 including transformations that combine a reflection a ...
; the rotation group for a regular
tetrahedron
In geometry, a tetrahedron (plural: tetrahedra or tetrahedrons), also known as a triangular pyramid, is a polyhedron composed of four triangular faces, six straight edges, and four vertex corners. The tetrahedron is the simplest of all the o ...
; order 12.
* Td – full
tetrahedral symmetry
150px, A regular tetrahedron, an example of a solid with full tetrahedral symmetry
A regular tetrahedron has 12 rotational (or orientation-preserving) symmetries, and a symmetry order of 24 including transformations that combine a reflection a ...
; the symmetry group for a regular
tetrahedron
In geometry, a tetrahedron (plural: tetrahedra or tetrahedrons), also known as a triangular pyramid, is a polyhedron composed of four triangular faces, six straight edges, and four vertex corners. The tetrahedron is the simplest of all the o ...
; order 24.
* Th –
pyritohedral symmetry
150px, A regular tetrahedron, an example of a solid with full tetrahedral symmetry
A regular tetrahedron has 12 rotational (or orientation-preserving) symmetries, and a symmetry order of 24 including transformations that combine a reflection a ...
; the symmetry of a
pyritohedron
In geometry, a dodecahedron (Greek , from ''dōdeka'' "twelve" + ''hédra'' "base", "seat" or "face") or duodecahedron is any polyhedron with twelve flat faces. The most familiar dodecahedron is the regular dodecahedron with regular pentagon ...
; order 24.
* O – chiral
octahedral symmetry
A regular octahedron has 24 rotational (or orientation-preserving) symmetries, and 48 symmetries altogether. These include transformations that combine a reflection and a rotation. A cube has the same set of symmetries, since it is the polyhedr ...
;the rotation group of the
cube
In geometry, a cube is a three-dimensional solid object bounded by six square faces, facets or sides, with three meeting at each vertex. Viewed from a corner it is a hexagon and its net is usually depicted as a cross.
The cube is the only r ...
and
octahedron
In geometry, an octahedron (plural: octahedra, octahedrons) is a polyhedron with eight faces. The term is most commonly used to refer to the regular octahedron, a Platonic solid composed of eight equilateral triangles, four of which meet at ea ...
; order 24.
* Oh – full
octahedral symmetry
A regular octahedron has 24 rotational (or orientation-preserving) symmetries, and 48 symmetries altogether. These include transformations that combine a reflection and a rotation. A cube has the same set of symmetries, since it is the polyhedr ...
; the symmetry group of the
cube
In geometry, a cube is a three-dimensional solid object bounded by six square faces, facets or sides, with three meeting at each vertex. Viewed from a corner it is a hexagon and its net is usually depicted as a cross.
The cube is the only r ...
and
octahedron
In geometry, an octahedron (plural: octahedra, octahedrons) is a polyhedron with eight faces. The term is most commonly used to refer to the regular octahedron, a Platonic solid composed of eight equilateral triangles, four of which meet at ea ...
; order 48.
* I – chiral
icosahedral symmetry
In mathematics, and especially in geometry, an object has icosahedral symmetry if it has the same symmetries as a regular icosahedron. Examples of other polyhedra with icosahedral symmetry include the regular dodecahedron (the dual of the ...
; the rotation group of the
icosahedron
In geometry, an icosahedron ( or ) is a polyhedron with 20 faces. The name comes and . The plural can be either "icosahedra" () or "icosahedrons".
There are infinitely many non- similar shapes of icosahedra, some of them being more symmetrica ...
and the
dodecahedron
In geometry, a dodecahedron (Greek , from ''dōdeka'' "twelve" + ''hédra'' "base", "seat" or "face") or duodecahedron is any polyhedron with twelve flat faces. The most familiar dodecahedron is the regular dodecahedron with regular pentagon ...
; order 60.
* Ih – full
icosahedral symmetry
In mathematics, and especially in geometry, an object has icosahedral symmetry if it has the same symmetries as a regular icosahedron. Examples of other polyhedra with icosahedral symmetry include the regular dodecahedron (the dual of the ...
; the symmetry group of the
icosahedron
In geometry, an icosahedron ( or ) is a polyhedron with 20 faces. The name comes and . The plural can be either "icosahedra" () or "icosahedrons".
There are infinitely many non- similar shapes of icosahedra, some of them being more symmetrica ...
and the
dodecahedron
In geometry, a dodecahedron (Greek , from ''dōdeka'' "twelve" + ''hédra'' "base", "seat" or "face") or duodecahedron is any polyhedron with twelve flat faces. The most familiar dodecahedron is the regular dodecahedron with regular pentagon ...
chiral
Chirality is a property of asymmetry important in several branches of science. The word ''chirality'' is derived from the Greek (''kheir''), "hand", a familiar chiral object.
An object or a system is ''chiral'' if it is distinguishable from ...
symmetry do not have
reflection symmetry
In mathematics, reflection symmetry, line symmetry, mirror symmetry, or mirror-image symmetry is symmetry with respect to a reflection. That is, a figure which does not change upon undergoing a reflection has reflectional symmetry.
In 2D ther ...
and hence have two enantiomorphous forms which are reflections of each other. Examples include the
snub cuboctahedron
In geometry, the snub cube, or snub cuboctahedron, is an Archimedean solid with 38 faces: 6 square (geometry), squares and 32 equilateral triangles. It has 60 edge (geometry), edges and 24 vertex (geometry), vertices.
It is a chiral polytope, ...
and
snub icosidodecahedron
In geometry, the snub dodecahedron, or snub icosidodecahedron, is an Archimedean solid, one of thirteen convex isogonal nonprismatic solids constructed by two or more types of regular polygon faces.
The snub dodecahedron has 92 faces (the most ...
.
Other important families of polyhedra
Polyhedra with regular faces
Besides the regular and uniform polyhedra, there are some other classes which have regular faces but lower overall symmetry.
Equal regular faces
Convex polyhedra where every face is the same kind of regular polygon may be found among three families:
* Triangles: These polyhedra are called
deltahedra
In geometry, a deltahedron (plural ''deltahedra'') is a polyhedron whose faces are all equilateral triangles. The name is taken from the Greek upper case delta (Δ), which has the shape of an equilateral triangle. There are infinitely many del ...
. There are eight convex deltahedra: three of the Platonic solids and five non-uniform examples.
* Squares: The cube is the only convex example. Other examples (the
polycube
upAll 8 one-sided tetracubes – if chirality is ignored, the bottom 2 in grey are considered the same, giving 7 free tetracubes in total
A puzzle involving arranging nine L tricubes into a 3×3 cube
A polycube is a solid figure formed by j ...
s) can be obtained by joining cubes together, although care must be taken if
coplanar
In geometry, a set of points in space are coplanar if there exists a geometric plane that contains them all. For example, three points are always coplanar, and if the points are distinct and non-collinear, the plane they determine is unique. Howe ...
faces are to be avoided.
* Pentagons: The regular dodecahedron is the only convex example.
Polyhedra with congruent regular faces of six or more sides are all non-convex.
The total number of convex polyhedra with equal regular faces is thus ten: the five Platonic solids and the five non-uniform deltahedra. There are infinitely many non-convex examples. Infinite sponge-like examples called infinite skew polyhedra exist in some of these families.
Johnson solids
Norman Johnson sought which convex non-uniform polyhedra had regular faces, although not necessarily all alike. In 1966, he published a list of 92 such solids, gave them names and numbers, and conjectured that there were no others.
Victor Zalgaller
Victor (Viktor) Abramovich Zalgaller ( he, ויקטור אבּרמוביץ' זלגלר; russian: Виктор Абрамович Залгаллер; 25 December 1920 – 2 October 2020) was a Russian-Israeli mathematician in the fields of ge ...
proved in 1969 that the list of these
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 was complete.
Pyramids
Pyramids include some of the most time-honoured and famous of all polyhedra, such as the four-sided
Egyptian pyramid
The Egyptian pyramids are ancient masonry structures located in Egypt. Sources cite at least 118 identified "Egyptian" pyramids. Approximately 80 pyramids were built within the Kingdom of Kush, now located in the modern country of Sudan. Of ...
s.
Stellations and facettings
Stellation
In geometry, stellation is the process of extending a polygon in two dimensions, polyhedron in three dimensions, or, in general, a polytope in ''n'' dimensions to form a new figure. Starting with an original figure, the process extends specific el ...
of a polyhedron is the process of extending the faces (within their planes) so that they meet to form a new polyhedron.
Faceting
Stella octangula as a faceting of the cube
In geometry, faceting (also spelled facetting) is the process of removing parts of a polygon, polyhedron or polytope, without creating any new Vertex (geometry), vertices.
New edges of a faceted pol ...
is the process of removing parts of a polyhedron to create new faces, or facets, without creating any new vertices.Bridge, N.J. Facetting the dodecahedron, ''Acta crystallographica'' A30 (1974), pp. 548–552. A facet of a polyhedron is any polygon whose corners are vertices of the polyhedron, and is not a ''
face
The face is the front of an animal's head that features the eyes, nose and mouth, and through which animals express many of their emotions. The face is crucial for human identity, and damage such as scarring or developmental deformities may aff ...
''.
Stellation and faceting are inverse or reciprocal processes: the dual of some stellation is a faceting of the dual to the original polyhedron.
Zonohedra
A zonohedron is a convex polyhedron in which every face is a
polygon
In geometry, a polygon () is a plane figure that is described by a finite number of straight line segments connected to form a closed ''polygonal chain'' (or ''polygonal circuit''). The bounded plane region, the bounding circuit, or the two toge ...
that is symmetric under
rotation
Rotation, or spin, is the circular movement of an object around a '' central axis''. A two-dimensional rotating object has only one possible central axis and can rotate in either a clockwise or counterclockwise direction. A three-dimensional ...
s through 180°. Zonohedra can also be characterized as the
Minkowski sum
In geometry, the Minkowski sum (also known as dilation) of two sets of position vectors ''A'' and ''B'' in Euclidean space is formed by adding each vector in ''A'' to each vector in ''B'', i.e., the set
: A + B = \.
Analogously, the Minkowski ...
s of line segments, and include several important space-filling polyhedra.
Space-filling polyhedra
A space-filling polyhedron packs with copies of itself to fill space. Such a close-packing or space-filling is often called a tessellation of space or a honeycomb. Space-filling polyhedra must have a
Dehn invariant
In geometry, the Dehn invariant is a value used to determine whether one polyhedron can be cut into pieces and reassembled ("dissection problem, dissected") into another, and whether a polyhedron or its dissections can Honeycomb (geometry), tile s ...
equal to zero. Some honeycombs involve more than one kind of polyhedron.
Lattice polyhedra
A convex polyhedron in which all vertices have integer coordinates is called a lattice polyhedron or
integral polyhedron
Linear programming (LP), also called linear optimization, is a method to achieve the best outcome (such as maximum profit or lowest cost) in a mathematical model whose requirements are represented by linear relationships. Linear programming is ...
. The Ehrhart polynomial of a lattice polyhedron counts how many points with
integer
An integer is the number zero (), a positive natural number (, , , etc.) or a negative integer with a minus sign (−1, −2, −3, etc.). The negative numbers are the additive inverses of the corresponding positive numbers. In the language ...
coordinates lie within a scaled copy of the polyhedron, as a function of the scale factor. The study of these polynomials lies at the intersection of
combinatorics
Combinatorics is an area of mathematics primarily concerned with counting, both as a means and an end in obtaining results, and certain properties of finite structures. It is closely related to many other areas of mathematics and has many appl ...
and
commutative algebra
Commutative algebra, first known as ideal theory, is the branch of algebra that studies commutative rings, their ideals, and modules over such rings. Both algebraic geometry and algebraic number theory build on commutative algebra. Prominent ...
. There is a far-reaching equivalence between lattice polyhedra and certain
algebraic varieties
Algebraic varieties are the central objects of study in algebraic geometry, a sub-field of mathematics. Classically, an algebraic variety is defined as the set of solutions of a system of polynomial equations over the real or complex numbers. Mo ...
called
toric varieties In algebraic geometry, a toric variety or torus embedding is an algebraic variety containing an algebraic torus as an open dense subset, such that the action of the torus on itself extends to the whole variety. Some authors also require it to be no ...
. This was used by Stanley to prove the
Dehn–Sommerville equations In mathematics, the Dehn–Sommerville equations are a complete set of linear relations between the numbers of faces of different dimension of a simplicial polytope. For polytopes of dimension 4 and 5, they were found by Max Dehn in 1905. Their gen ...
It is possible for some polyhedra to change their overall shape, while keeping the shapes of their faces the same, by varying the angles of their edges. A polyhedron that can do this is called a flexible polyhedron. By Cauchy's rigidity theorem, flexible polyhedra must be non-convex. The volume of a flexible polyhedron must remain constant as it flexes; this result is known as the bellows theorem.
Compounds
A polyhedral compound is made of two or more polyhedra sharing a common centre. Symmetrical compounds often share the same vertices as other well-known polyhedra and may often also be formed by stellation. Some are listed in the
list of Wenninger polyhedron models
This is an indexed list of the uniform and stellated polyhedra from the book ''Polyhedron Models'', by Magnus Wenninger.
The book was written as a guide book to building polyhedra as physical models. It includes templates of face elements for cons ...
.
Orthogonal polyhedra
An orthogonal polyhedron is one all of whose faces meet at
right angle
In geometry and trigonometry, a right angle is an angle of exactly 90 Degree (angle), degrees or radians corresponding to a quarter turn (geometry), turn. If a Line (mathematics)#Ray, ray is placed so that its endpoint is on a line and the ad ...
s, and all of whose edges are parallel to axes of a Cartesian coordinate system. (
Jessen's icosahedron
Jessen's icosahedron, sometimes called Jessen's orthogonal icosahedron, is a Convex polyhedron, non-convex polyhedron with the same numbers of vertices, edges, and faces as the regular icosahedron. It is named for Børge Jessen, who studied it i ...
provides an example of a polyhedron meeting one but not both of these two conditions.) Aside from the
rectangular cuboid
In geometry, a cuboid is a hexahedron, a six-faced solid. Its faces are quadrilaterals. Cuboid means "like a cube", in the sense that by adjusting the length of the edges or the angles between edges and faces a cuboid can be transformed into a cub ...
s, orthogonal polyhedra are nonconvex. They are the 3D analogs of 2D orthogonal polygons, also known as
rectilinear polygon
A rectilinear polygon is a polygon all of whose sides meet at right angles. Thus the interior angle at each vertex is either 90° or 270°. Rectilinear polygons are a special case of isothetic polygons.
In many cases another definition is pr ...
s. Orthogonal polyhedra are used in
computational geometry
Computational geometry is a branch of computer science devoted to the study of algorithms which can be stated in terms of geometry. Some purely geometrical problems arise out of the study of computational geometric algorithms, and such problems ar ...
, 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.
Polycube
upAll 8 one-sided tetracubes – if chirality is ignored, the bottom 2 in grey are considered the same, giving 7 free tetracubes in total
A puzzle involving arranging nine L tricubes into a 3×3 cube
A polycube is a solid figure formed by j ...
s are a special case of orthogonal polyhedra that can be decomposed into identical cubes, and are three-dimensional analogues of planar
polyomino
A polyomino is a plane geometric figure formed by joining one or more equal squares edge to edge. It is a polyform whose cells are squares. It may be regarded as a finite subset of the regular square tiling.
Polyominoes have been used in pop ...
es.
Embedded regular maps with planar faces
Regular maps are flag transitive abstract 2-manifolds and they have been studied already in the nineteenth century.
Some of them have 3-dimensional polyhedral embeddings like the one that represents Klein's quartic.
Canonical polyhedra
Every convex polyhedron is combinatorially equivalent to an essentially unique
canonical polyhedron
In geometry, the midsphere or intersphere of a polyhedron is a sphere which is tangent to every edge of the polyhedron. That is to say, it touches any given edge at exactly one point. Not every polyhedron has a midsphere, but for every convex po ...
, a polyhedron which has a midsphere tangent to each of its edges.
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 has a finite number of faces, joined in pairs along edges. The apeirohedra form a related class of objects with infinitely many faces. Examples of apeirohedra include:
* tilings or
tessellation
A tessellation or tiling is the covering of a surface, often a plane (mathematics), plane, using one or more geometric shapes, called ''tiles'', with no overlaps and no gaps. In mathematics, tessellation can be generalized to high-dimensional ...
There are objects called complex polyhedra, for which the underlying space is a
complex
Complex commonly refers to:
* Complexity, the behaviour of a system whose components interact in multiple ways so possible interactions are difficult to describe
** Complex system, a system composed of many components which may interact with each ...
Hilbert space
In mathematics, Hilbert spaces (named after David Hilbert) allow generalizing the methods of linear algebra and calculus from (finite-dimensional) Euclidean vector spaces to spaces that may be infinite-dimensional. Hilbert spaces arise natural ...
rather than real Euclidean space. Precise definitions exist only for the regular complex polyhedra, whose symmetry groups are
complex reflection group In mathematics, a complex reflection group is a finite group acting on a finite-dimensional complex vector space that is generated by complex reflections: non-trivial elements that fix a complex hyperplane pointwise.
Complex reflection groups arise ...
s. The complex polyhedra are mathematically more closely related to configurations than to real polyhedra.
Curved polyhedra
Some fields of study allow polyhedra to have curved faces and edges. Curved faces can allow
digon
In geometry, a digon is a polygon with two sides (edges) and two vertices. Its construction is degenerate in a Euclidean plane because either the two sides would coincide or one or both would have to be curved; however, it can be easily visua ...
al faces to exist with a positive area.
Spherical polyhedra
When the surface of a sphere is divided by finitely many great arcs (equivalently, by planes passing through the center of the sphere), the result is called a spherical polyhedron. Many convex polytopes having some degree of symmetry (for example, all the Platonic solids) can be projected onto the surface of a concentric sphere to produce a spherical polyhedron. However, the reverse process is not always possible; some spherical polyhedra (such as the
hosohedra
In spherical geometry, an -gonal hosohedron is a tessellation of lunes on a spherical surface, such that each lune shares the same two polar opposite vertices.
A regular -gonal hosohedron has Schläfli symbol with each spherical lune havi ...
) have no flat-faced analogue.
Curved spacefilling polyhedra
If faces are allowed to be concave as well as convex, adjacent faces may be made to meet together with no gap. Some of these curved polyhedra can pack together to fill space. Two important types are:
* Bubbles in froths and foams, such as Weaire-Phelan bubbles.
* Forms used in architecture.
Ideal polyhedra
Convex polyhedra can be defined in three-dimensional
hyperbolic space
In mathematics, hyperbolic space of dimension n is the unique simply connected, n-dimensional Riemannian manifold of constant sectional curvature equal to -1. It is homogeneous, and satisfies the stronger property of being a symmetric space. Th ...
in the same way as in Euclidean space, as the
convex hull
In geometry, the convex hull or convex envelope or convex closure of a shape is the smallest convex set that contains it. The convex hull may be defined either as the intersection of all convex sets containing a given subset of a Euclidean space ...
s of finite sets of points.
However, in hyperbolic space, it is also possible to consider
ideal point
In hyperbolic geometry, an ideal point, omega point or point at infinity is a well-defined point outside the hyperbolic plane or space.
Given a line ''l'' and a point ''P'' not on ''l'', right- and left-limiting parallels to ''l'' through ''P'' ...
s as well as the points that lie within the space. An
ideal polyhedron
In three-dimensional hyperbolic geometry, an ideal polyhedron is a convex polyhedron all of whose vertices are ideal points, points "at infinity" rather than interior to three-dimensional hyperbolic space. It can be defined as the convex hull o ...
is the convex hull of a finite set of ideal points. Its faces are ideal polygons, but its edges are defined by entire hyperbolic lines rather than line segments, and its vertices (the ideal points of which it is the convex hull) do not lie within the hyperbolic space.
Skeletons and polyhedra as graphs
By forgetting the face structure, any polyhedron gives rise to a
graph
Graph may refer to:
Mathematics
*Graph (discrete mathematics), a structure made of vertices and edges
**Graph theory, the study of such graphs and their properties
*Graph (topology), a topological space resembling a graph in the sense of discre ...
, called its
skeleton
A skeleton is the structural frame that supports the body of an animal. There are several types of skeletons, including the exoskeleton, which is the stable outer shell of an organism, the endoskeleton, which forms the support structure inside ...
, with corresponding vertices and edges. Such figures have a long history:
Leonardo da Vinci
Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci (15 April 14522 May 1519) was an Italian polymath of the High Renaissance who was active as a painter, Drawing, draughtsman, engineer, scientist, theorist, sculptor, and architect. While his fame initially res ...
devised frame models of the regular solids, which he drew for Pacioli's book ''Divina Proportione'', and similar wire-frame polyhedra appear in
M.C. Escher
Maurits Cornelis Escher (; 17 June 1898 – 27 March 1972) was a Dutch graphic artist who made Mathematics and art, mathematically inspired woodcuts, lithography, lithographs, and mezzotints.
Despite wide popular interest, Escher was for ...
's print ''Stars''. One highlight of this approach is
Steinitz's theorem
In polyhedral combinatorics, a branch of mathematics, Steinitz's theorem is a characterization of the undirected graphs formed by the edges and vertices of three-dimensional convex polyhedra: they are exactly the 3-vertex-connected planar grap ...
, which gives a purely graph-theoretic characterization of the skeletons of convex polyhedra: it states that the skeleton of every convex polyhedron is a 3-connected
planar graph
In graph theory, a planar graph is a graph that can be embedded in the plane, i.e., it can be drawn on the plane in such a way that its edges intersect only at their endpoints. In other words, it can be drawn in such a way that no edges cross ...
, and every 3-connected planar graph is the skeleton of some convex polyhedron.
An early idea of abstract polyhedra was developed in
Branko Grünbaum
Branko Grünbaum ( he, ברנקו גרונבאום; 2 October 1929 – 14 September 2018) was a Croatian-born mathematician of Jewish descentskew
Skew may refer to:
In mathematics
* Skew lines, neither parallel nor intersecting.
* Skew normal distribution, a probability distribution
* Skew field or division ring
* Skew-Hermitian matrix
* Skew lattice
* Skew polygon, whose vertices do not ...
as well as planar.
The graph perspective allows one to apply graph terminology and properties to polyhedra. For example, the tetrahedron and
Császár polyhedron
In geometry, the Császár polyhedron () is a nonconvex toroidal polyhedron with 14 triangular faces.
This polyhedron has no diagonals; every pair of vertices is connected by an edge. The seven vertices and 21 edges of the Császár polyhedron ...
are the only known polyhedra whose skeletons are
complete graph
In the mathematical field of graph theory, a complete graph is a simple undirected graph in which every pair of distinct vertices is connected by a unique edge. A complete digraph is a directed graph in which every pair of distinct vertices is c ...
s (K4), and various symmetry restrictions on polyhedra give rise to skeletons that are
symmetric graph
In the mathematical field of graph theory, a graph is symmetric (or arc-transitive) if, given any two pairs of adjacent vertices and of , there is an automorphism
:f : V(G) \rightarrow V(G)
such that
:f(u_1) = u_2 and f(v_1) = v_2.
In oth ...
s.
Alternative usages
From the latter half of the twentieth century, various mathematical constructs have been found to have properties also present in traditional polyhedra. Rather than confining the term "polyhedron" to describe a three-dimensional polytope, it has been adopted to describe various related but distinct kinds of structure.
Higher-dimensional polyhedra
A polyhedron has been defined as a set of points in
real
Real may refer to:
Currencies
* Brazilian real (R$)
* Central American Republic real
* Mexican real
* Portuguese real
* Spanish real
* Spanish colonial real
Music Albums
* ''Real'' (L'Arc-en-Ciel album) (2000)
* ''Real'' (Bright album) (2010)
...
affine
Affine may describe any of various topics concerned with connections or affinities.
It may refer to:
* Affine, a relative by marriage in law and anthropology
* Affine cipher, a special case of the more general substitution cipher
* Affine comb ...
(or Euclidean) space of any dimension ''n'' that has flat sides. It may alternatively be defined as the intersection of finitely many half-spaces. Unlike a conventional polyhedron, it may be bounded or unbounded. In this meaning, a
polytope
In elementary geometry, a polytope is a geometric object with flat sides (''faces''). Polytopes are the generalization of three-dimensional polyhedra to any number of dimensions. Polytopes may exist in any general number of dimensions as an -d ...
is a bounded polyhedron.
Analytically, such a convex polyhedron is expressed as the solution set for a system of linear inequalities. Defining polyhedra in this way provides a geometric perspective for problems in
linear programming
Linear programming (LP), also called linear optimization, is a method to achieve the best outcome (such as maximum profit or lowest cost) in a mathematical model whose requirements are represented by linear function#As a polynomial function, li ...
.
Many traditional polyhedral forms are polyhedra in this sense. 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: . Its sides are the two positive axes, and it is otherwise unbounded.
* An octant in Euclidean 3-space, .
* 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: .
* Each
cell
Cell most often refers to:
* Cell (biology), the functional basic unit of life
Cell may also refer to:
Locations
* Monastic cell, a small room, hut, or cave in which a religious recluse lives, alternatively the small precursor of a monastery ...
in a
Voronoi tessellation Voronoi or Voronoy is a Slavic masculine surname; its feminine counterpart is Voronaya. It may refer to
*Georgy Voronoy (1868–1908), Russian and Ukrainian mathematician
**Voronoi diagram
**Weighted Voronoi diagram
** Voronoi deformation density
** ...
is a convex polyhedron. In the Voronoi tessellation of a set ''S'', the cell ''A'' corresponding to a point is bounded (hence a traditional polyhedron) when ''c'' lies in the interior of the
convex hull
In geometry, the convex hull or convex envelope or convex closure of a shape is the smallest convex set that contains it. The convex hull may be defined either as the intersection of all convex sets containing a given subset of a Euclidean space ...
of ''S'', and otherwise (when ''c'' lies on the
boundary
Boundary or Boundaries may refer to:
* Border, in political geography
Entertainment
*Boundaries (2016 film), ''Boundaries'' (2016 film), a 2016 Canadian film
*Boundaries (2018 film), ''Boundaries'' (2018 film), a 2018 American-Canadian road trip ...
of the convex hull of ''S'') ''A'' is unbounded.
Topological polyhedra
A topological polytope is a topological space given along with a specific decomposition into shapes that are topologically equivalent to
convex polytope
A convex polytope is a special case of a polytope, having the additional property that it is also a convex set contained in the n-dimensional Euclidean space \mathbb^n. Most texts. use the term "polytope" for a bounded convex polytope, and the wo ...
s 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
In geometry, a simplex (plural: simplexes or simplices) is a generalization of the notion of a triangle or tetrahedron to arbitrary dimensions. The simplex is so-named because it represents the simplest possible polytope in any given dimension. ...
, 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 polytope is a
partially ordered set
In mathematics, especially order theory, a partially ordered set (also poset) formalizes and generalizes the intuitive concept of an ordering, sequencing, or arrangement of the elements of a Set (mathematics), set. A poset consists of a set toget ...
(poset) of elements whose partial ordering obeys certain rules of incidence (connectivity) and ranking. The elements of the set correspond to the vertices, edges, faces and so on of the polytope: vertices have rank 0, edges rank 1, etc. with the partially ordered ranking corresponding to the dimensionality of the geometric elements. The empty set, required by set theory, has a rank of −1 and is sometimes said to correspond to the null polytope. An abstract polyhedron is an abstract polytope having the following ranking:
* rank 3: The maximal element, sometimes identified with the body.
* rank 2: The polygonal faces.
* rank 1: The edges.
* rank 0: the vertices.
* rank −1: The empty set, sometimes identified with the ''null polytope'' or ''nullitope''.
Any geometric polyhedron is then said to be a "realization" in real space of the abstract poset as described above.
History
Ancient
;Prehistory
Polyhedra appeared in early architecture, architectural forms such as cubes and cuboids, with the earliest four-sided pyramids of ancient Egypt also dating from the Stone Age.
The Etruscan civilization, Etruscans preceded the Greeks in their awareness of at least some of the regular polyhedra, as evidenced by the discovery of an Etruscan civilization, Etruscan
dodecahedron
In geometry, a dodecahedron (Greek , from ''dōdeka'' "twelve" + ''hédra'' "base", "seat" or "face") or duodecahedron is any polyhedron with twelve flat faces. The most familiar dodecahedron is the regular dodecahedron with regular pentagon ...
made of soapstone on Monte Loffa. Its faces were marked with different designs, suggesting to some scholars that it may have been used as a gaming die.
;Greek civilisation
The earliest known ''written'' records of these shapes come from Classical Ancient Greece, Greek authors, who also gave the first known mathematical description of them. The earlier Greeks were interested primarily in the Regular polyhedron#History, convex regular polyhedra, which came to be known as the
Platonic solid
In geometry, a Platonic solid is a convex, regular polyhedron in three-dimensional Euclidean space. Being a regular polyhedron means that the faces are congruent (identical in shape and size) regular polygons (all angles congruent and all edges c ...
s. Pythagoras knew at least three of them, and Theaetetus (mathematician), Theaetetus (circa 417 B. C.) described all five. Eventually, Euclid described their construction in his ''Euclid's Elements, Elements''. Later, Archimedes expanded his study to the Uniform polyhedron, convex uniform polyhedra which now bear his name. His original work is lost and his solids come down to us through Pappus of Alexandria, Pappus.
;China
Cubical gaming dice in China have been dated back as early as 600 B.C.
By 236 AD, 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.
;Islamic civilisation
After the end of the Classical era, scholars in the Islamic civilisation continued to take the Greek knowledge forward (see Mathematics in medieval Islam).
The 9th century scholar Thabit ibn Qurra gave formulae for calculating the volumes of polyhedra such as truncated pyramids.
Then in the 10th century Abūl Wafā' Būzjānī, 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 (graphical), 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
Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci (15 April 14522 May 1519) was an Italian polymath of the High Renaissance who was active as a painter, Drawing, draughtsman, engineer, scientist, theorist, sculptor, and architect. While his fame initially res ...
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 pupil depicts a glass rhombicuboctahedron half-filled with water.
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 (1571–1630) used star polygons, typically pentagrams, to build star polyhedra. Some of these figures may have been discovered before Kepler's time, but he was the first to recognize that they could be considered "regular" if one removed the restriction that regular polyhedra must be convex. Later, Louis Poinsot realised that star
vertex figure
In geometry, a vertex figure, broadly speaking, is the figure exposed when a corner of a polyhedron or polytope is sliced off.
Definitions
Take some corner or Vertex (geometry), vertex of a polyhedron. Mark a point somewhere along each connect ...
s (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''.
The reciprocal process to stellation is called facetting (or faceting). Every stellation of one polytope is Dual polyhedron, dual, or reciprocal, to some facetting of the dual polytope. The regular star polyhedra can also be obtained by facetting the Platonic solids. listed the simpler facettings of the dodecahedron, and reciprocated them to discover a stellation of the icosahedron that was missing from the set of "59".. More have been discovered since, and the story is not yet ended.
Euler's formula and topology
Two other modern mathematical developments had a profound effect on polyhedron theory.
In 1750 Leonhard Euler for the first time considered the edges of a polyhedron, allowing him to discover his polyhedron formula relating the number of vertices, edges and faces. This signalled the birth of topology, sometimes referred to as "rubber sheet geometry", and Henri Poincaré developed its core ideas around the end of the nineteenth century. This allowed many longstanding issues over what was or was not a polyhedron to be resolved.
Max Brückner summarised work on polyhedra to date, including many findings of his own, in his book "Vielecke und Vielflache: Theorie und Geschichte" (Polygons and polyhedra: Theory and History). Published in German in 1900, it remained little known.
Meanwhile, the discovery of higher dimensions led to the idea of a polyhedron as a three-dimensional example of the more general polytope.
Twentieth-century revival
By the early years of the twentieth century, mathematicians had moved on and geometry was little studied. Coxeter's analysis in ''The Fifty-Nine Icosahedra'' introduced modern ideas from graph theory and
combinatorics
Combinatorics is an area of mathematics primarily concerned with counting, both as a means and an end in obtaining results, and certain properties of finite structures. It is closely related to many other areas of mathematics and has many appl ...
into the study of polyhedra, signalling a rebirth of interest in geometry.
Coxeter himself went on to enumerate the star uniform polyhedra for the first time, to treat tilings of the plane as polyhedra, to discover the regular skew polyhedron, regular skew polyhedra and to develop the theory of complex polytope, complex polyhedra first discovered by Shephard in 1952, as well as making fundamental contributions to many other areas of geometry.
In the second part of the twentieth century, Grünbaum published important works in two areas. One was in
convex polytope
A convex polytope is a special case of a polytope, having the additional property that it is also a convex set contained in the n-dimensional Euclidean space \mathbb^n. Most texts. use the term "polytope" for a bounded convex polytope, and the wo ...
s, where he noted a tendency among mathematicians to define a "polyhedron" in different and sometimes incompatible ways to suit the needs of the moment. The other was a series of papers broadening the accepted definition of a polyhedron, for example discovering many new Regular polyhedron#History, regular polyhedra. At the close of the 20th century these latter ideas merged with other work on incidence complexes to create the modern idea of an abstract polyhedron (as an abstract 3-polytope), notably presented by McMullen and Schulte.
In nature
For natural occurrences of regular polyhedra, see .
Irregular polyhedra appear in nature as crystals.
See also
* defect (geometry), Defect
* Deltohedron
* Extension of a polyhedron
* Goldberg polyhedron
* List of books about polyhedra
* List of small polyhedra by vertex count
* Near-miss Johnson solid
* Polyhedron models
* Schlegel diagram
* Spidron
* Lists of shapes
* Stella (software)
– The Encyclopedia of Polyhedra.
– Contains a peer reviewed selection of polyhedra with unusual properties.
– Virtual polyhedra.
Paper Models of Uniform (and other) Polyhedra Polyhedra Viewer – Web-based tool for visualizing the relationships between the convex, regular-faced polyhedra.
Free software
– An interactive and free collection of polyhedra in Java. Features includes nets, planar sections, duals, truncations and stellations of more than 300 polyhedra.
– Explorer java applet, includes a variety of 3d viewer options.
openSCAD – Free cross-platform software for programmers. Polyhedra are just one of the things you can model. The b:OpenSCAD User Manual, openSCAD User Manual is also available.
OpenVolumeMesh – An open source cross-platform C++ library for handling polyhedral meshes. Developed by the Aachen Computer Graphics Group, RWTH Aachen University.
Polyhedronisme – Web-based tool for generating polyhedra models using Conway polyhedron notation, Conway Polyhedron Notation. Models can be exported as 2D PNG images, or as 3D OBJ or VRML2 files. The 3D files can be opened in CAD software, or uploaded for 3D printing at services such a Shapeways
– Polyhedra models constructed without use of glue.
Adopt a Polyhedron - Interactive display, nets and 3D printer data for all combinatorial types of polyhedra with up to nine vertices.
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Polyhedra,