What is the true number of semiregular (Archimedean) solids? (Q1339972)
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English | What is the true number of semiregular (Archimedean) solids? |
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What is the true number of semiregular (Archimedean) solids? (English)
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12 December 1994
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In three-dimensional Euclidean space first we call a polyhedron with congruent edges an Archimedean solid if the symmetry group of that polyhedron works transitively upon the set of the vertices (semiregularity). Then there are 13 different such Archimedean solids (apart from the two infinite families of primes and antiprimes). In this paper, corresponding to other usual definitions of Archimedean solids, the author counts such solids different from a prism and an antiprism. Among these (classical) 13 solids mentioned above, which Archimedes already knew, there are three which lead to three further solids. In slightly changing the definition of an Archimedean solid in a suitable way we also can call these three solids Archimedean ones. They are different from the other ones. Thus there are \(13 + 3 =16\) Archimedean solids, this is the author's statement. In particular one of these new solids has regular faces and pairwise congruent vertex configurations (Miller polyhedron). The other two are the reflections of two Archimedean solids above having no symmetry plane. They are different from their counterimages if the symmetry group may contain only proper motions. A similar configuration is possible in dimension two. Therefore the author can show the pictures of two (different) plane semiregular tilings without any symmetry line; reflecting one he gets the other.
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three-dimensional polytopes
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Archimedean solids
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