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Zometool
The term ''zome'' is used in several related senses. A zome in the original sense is a building using unusual geometries (different from the standard house or other building which is essentially one or a series of rectangular boxes). The word "zome" was coined in 1968 by Steve Durkee, now known as Nooruddeen Durkee, combining the words dome and zonohedron. One of the earliest models ended up as a large climbing structure at the Lama Foundation. In the second sense as a learning tool or toy, "Zometool" refers to a model-construction toy manufactured by Zometool, Inc. It is sometimes thought of as the ultimate form of the "ball and stick" construction toy, in form. It appeals to adults as well as children, and is educational on many levels (not the least, geometry). Finally, the term "Zome system" refers to the mathematics underlying the physical construction system. Both the building and the learning tool are the brainchildren of inventor/designer Steve Baer, his wife, Holly, and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Construction Set
A construction set is a set of standardized pieces that allow for the construction of a variety of different models. The pieces avoid the lead-time of manufacturing custom pieces, and of requiring special training or design time to construct complex systems. This makes them suitable for temporary structures, or for use as children's toys. One very popular brand is Lego. Categories Construction sets can be categorized according to their connection method and geometry: * Struts of variable length that are connected to any point along another strut, and at nodes. ** Tesseract connection points are initially flexible but can be made rigid with the addition of clips. * Struts of fixed but multiple lengths that are connected by nodes are good for building space frames, and often have components that allow full rotational freedom. ** D8h (*228) nodes are used for K'Nex, Tinkertoys, Playskool Pipeworks, Cleversticks and interlocking disks in general. ** D6h nodes are used for ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rhombicosidodecahedron
In geometry, the rhombicosidodecahedron is an Archimedean solid, one of thirteen convex isogonal nonprismatic solids constructed of two or more types of regular polygon faces. It has 20 regular triangular faces, 30 square faces, 12 regular pentagonal faces, 60 vertices, and 120 edges. Names Johannes Kepler in Harmonices Mundi (1618) named this polyhedron a ''rhombicosidodecahedron'', being short for ''truncated icosidodecahedral rhombus'', with ''icosidodecahedral rhombus'' being his name for a rhombic triacontahedron. There are different truncations of a rhombic triacontahedron into a topological rhombicosidodecahedron: Prominently its rectification (left), the one that creates the uniform solid (center), and the rectification of the dual icosidodecahedron (right), which is the core of the dual compound. It can also be called an '' expanded'' or '' cantellated'' dodecahedron or icosahedron, from truncation operations on either uniform polyhedron. Dimensions For a r ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Drop City
Drop City was a counterculture artists' community that formed near the town of Trinidad in southern Colorado in 1960. Abandoned by 1979, Drop City became known as the first rural "hippie commune". Establishment In 1960, the four original founders, Gene Bernofsky ("Curly"), JoAnn Bernofsky ("Jo"), Richard Kallweit ("Lard"), and Clark Richert ("Clard"), art students and filmmakers from the University of Kansas and University of Colorado, bought a tract of land about four miles (6 km) north of Trinidad, in southeastern Colorado. Their intention was to create a live-in work of Drop Art, continuing an art concept they had developed earlier at the University of Kansas. Drop Art (sometimes called "droppings") was informed by the "happenings" of Allan Kaprow and the impromptu performances, a few years earlier, of John Cage, Robert Rauschenberg, and Buckminster Fuller, at Black Mountain College. As Drop City gained notoriety in the 1960s underground, people from around the wor ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Steve Baer
Steve Baer (born 1938) is an American inventor and pioneer of passive solar technology. Baer helped popularize the use of zomes. He took a number of solar power patents, wrote a number of books and publicized his work. Baer served on the board of directors of the U.S. Section of the International Solar Energy Society, and on the board of the New Mexico Solar Energy Association. He was the founder, chairman of the board, president, and director of research at Zomeworks Corporation. Early life Steve Baer was born in Los Angeles. In his teens while a student at Midland School, he read Lewis Mumford and decided technology needn’t necessarily degrade or complicate people's lives. In the latter 1950s, Baer worked at various jobs and attended Amherst College and UCLA. In 1960, he joined the U.S. Army, being stationed in Germany for three years. He also was married in 1960. After discharge from the Army, he and his wife, Holly settled in Zurich, Switzerland, where he worked as ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Coxeter Group
In mathematics, a Coxeter group, named after H. S. M. Coxeter, is an abstract group that admits a formal description in terms of reflections (or kaleidoscopic mirrors). Indeed, the finite Coxeter groups are precisely the finite Euclidean reflection groups; the symmetry groups of regular polyhedra are an example. However, not all Coxeter groups are finite, and not all can be described in terms of symmetries and Euclidean reflections. Coxeter groups were introduced in 1934 as abstractions of reflection groups , and finite Coxeter groups were classified in 1935 . Coxeter groups find applications in many areas of mathematics. Examples of finite Coxeter groups include the symmetry groups of regular polytopes, and the Weyl groups of simple Lie algebras. Examples of infinite Coxeter groups include the triangle groups corresponding to regular tessellations of the Euclidean plane and the hyperbolic plane, and the Weyl groups of infinite-dimensional Kac–Moody algebras. S ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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 symmetrical than others. The best known is the (convex, non-stellated) regular icosahedron—one of the Platonic solids—whose faces are 20 equilateral triangles. Regular icosahedra There are two objects, one convex and one nonconvex, that can both be called regular icosahedra. Each has 30 edges and 20 equilateral triangle faces with five meeting at each of its twelve vertices. Both have icosahedral symmetry. The term "regular icosahedron" generally refers to the convex variety, while the nonconvex form is called a ''great icosahedron''. Convex regular icosahedron The convex regular icosahedron is usually referred to simply as the ''regular icosahedron'', one of the five regular Platonic solids, and is represented by its Schläfli symbol , co ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
120-cell
In geometry, the 120-cell is the convex regular 4-polytope (four-dimensional analogue of a Platonic solid) with Schläfli symbol . It is also called a C120, dodecaplex (short for "dodecahedral complex"), hyperdodecahedron, polydodecahedron, hecatonicosachoron, dodecacontachoron and hecatonicosahedroid. The boundary of the 120-cell is composed of 120 dodecahedral cells with 4 meeting at each vertex. Together they form 720 pentagonal faces, 1200 edges, and 600 vertices. It is the 4- dimensional analogue of the regular dodecahedron, since just as a dodecahedron has 12 pentagonal facets, with 3 around each vertex, the ''dodecaplex'' has 120 dodecahedral facets, with 3 around each edge. Its dual polytope is the 600-cell. Geometry The 120-cell incorporates the geometries of every convex regular polytope in the first four dimensions (except the polygons and above). As the sixth and largest regular convex 4-polytope, it contains inscribed instances of its four predecessors (recursive ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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 congruent), and the same number of faces meet at each vertex. There are only five such polyhedra: Geometers have studied the Platonic solids for thousands of years. They are named for the ancient Greek philosopher Plato who hypothesized in one of his dialogues, the ''Timaeus'', that the classical elements were made of these regular solids. History The Platonic solids have been known since antiquity. It has been suggested that certain carved stone balls created by the late Neolithic people of Scotland represent these shapes; however, these balls have rounded knobs rather than being polyhedral, the numbers of knobs frequently differed from the numbers of vertices of the Platonic solids, there is no ball whose knobs match the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
600-cell
In geometry, the 600-cell is the convex regular 4-polytope (four-dimensional analogue of a Platonic solid) with Schläfli symbol . It is also known as the C600, hexacosichoron and hexacosihedroid. It is also called a tetraplex (abbreviated from "tetrahedral complex") and a polytetrahedron, being bounded by tetrahedral cells. The 600-cell's boundary is composed of 600 tetrahedral cells with 20 meeting at each vertex. Together they form 1200 triangular faces, 720 edges, and 120 vertices. It is the 4- dimensional analogue of the icosahedron, since it has five tetrahedra meeting at every edge, just as the icosahedron has five triangles meeting at every vertex. Its dual polytope is the 120-cell. Geometry The 600-cell is the fifth in the sequence of 6 convex regular 4-polytopes (in order of size and complexity). It can be deconstructed into twenty-five overlapping instances of its immediate predecessor the 24-cell, as the 24-cell can be deconstructed into three overlapping in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
