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 symmetrohedron is a high-symmetry

polyhedron 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 ...

containing convex

regular polygons In Euclidean geometry, a regular polygon is a polygon that is direct equiangular (all angles are equal in measure) and equilateral (all sides have the same length). Regular polygons may be either convex, star or skew. In the limit, a sequence ...

on symmetry axes with gaps on the convex hull filled by irregular polygons. The name was coined by Craig S. Kaplan and

George W. Hart George William Hart (born 1955) is an American sculptor and geometer. Before retiring, he was an associate professor of Electrical Engineering at Columbia University in New York City and then an interdepartmental research professor at Stony Br ...

.Symmetrohedra: Polyhedra from Symmetric Placement of Regular Polygons
/ref> The trivial cases are 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 e ...

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

s with all regular polygons. A first class is called ''bowtie'' which contain pairs of

trapezoidal A quadrilateral with at least one pair of parallel sides is called a trapezoid () in American and Canadian English. In British and other forms of English, it is called a trapezium (). A trapezoid is necessarily a convex quadrilateral in Eucli ...

faces. A second class has

kite A kite is a tethered heavier than air flight, heavier-than-air or lighter-than-air craft with wing surfaces that react against the air to create Lift (force), lift and Drag (physics), drag forces. A kite consists of wings, tethers and anchors. ...

faces. Another class are called LCM symmetrohedra.

Symbolic notation

Each symmetrohedron is described by a symbolic expression G(l; m; n; α). G represents the symmetry group (T,O,I). The values l, m and n are the multipliers ; a multiplier of m will cause a regular km-gon to be placed at every k-fold axis of G. In the notation, the axis degrees are assumed to be sorted in descending order, 5,3,2 for I, 4,3,2 for O, and 3,3,2 for T . We also allow two special values for the multipliers: *, indicating that no polygons should be placed on the given axes, and 0, indicating that the final solid must have a vertex (a zero-sided polygon) on the axes. We require that one or two of l, m, and n be positive integers. The final parameter, α, controls the relative sizes of the non-degenerate axis-gons.

Conway polyhedron notation In geometry, Conway polyhedron notation, invented by John Horton Conway and promoted by George W. Hart, is used to describe polyhedra based on a seed polyhedron modified by various prefix operations. Conway and Hart extended the idea of using o ...

is another way to describe these polyhedra, starting with a regular form, and applying prefix operators. The notation doesn't imply which faces should be made regular beyond the uniform solutions of the

1-generator point

These symmetrohedra are produced by a single generator point within a fundamental domains, reflective symmetry across domain boundaries. Edges exist perpendicular to each triangle boundary, and regular faces exist centered on each of the 3 triangle corners. The symmetrohedra can be extended to euclidean tilings, using the symmetry of the regular

square tiling In geometry, the square tiling, square tessellation or square grid is a regular tiling of the Euclidean plane. It has Schläfli symbol of meaning it has 4 squares around every vertex. Conway called it a quadrille. The internal angle of th ...

, and dual pairs of

triangular A triangle is a polygon with three edges and three vertices. It is one of the basic shapes in geometry. A triangle with vertices ''A'', ''B'', and ''C'' is denoted \triangle ABC. In Euclidean geometry, any three points, when non-collinear, ...

and

hexagonal tiling In geometry, the hexagonal tiling or hexagonal tessellation is a regular tiling of the Euclidean plane, in which exactly three hexagons meet at each vertex. It has Schläfli symbol of or (as a truncated triangular tiling). English mathema ...

s. Tilings, Q is square symmetry p4m, H is hexagonal symmetry p6m. Coxeter-Dynkin diagrams exist for these

uniform polyhedron In geometry, a uniform polyhedron has regular polygons as faces and is vertex-transitive (i.e., there is an isometry mapping any vertex onto any other). It follows that all vertices are congruent. Uniform polyhedra may be regular (if also ...

solutions, representing the position of the generator point within the fundamental domain. Each node represents one of 3 mirrors on the edge of the triangle. A mirror node is ringed if the generator point is active, off the mirror, and creates new edges between the point and its mirror image.

2-generator points

3-generator points

References

{{reflist

External links

Symmetrohedra
n RobertLovesPi.net.

Free software that includes Symmetro for generating and viewing these polyhedra with Kaplan-Hart notation. Polyhedra