Fullerenes, polyhedra, and Chinese guardian lions (Q517899)

In this very original paper, the authors bring to light a hitherto hidden and quite unexpected relation between a very elaborated Chinese art form and mathematics, namely the fact that the decorated spheres, located under the statues of the bronze lions paws appearing in front of the Forbidden City, in Beijing, display patterns corresponding to fullerene polyhedras and their duals. Most interestingly, this unexpected connection is fully explained both from the point of view of mathematics and by means of eleven beautiful color photographs and also black and white diagrams. Then, the authors tackle the question of the dating of these lions and convincingly argue that they were constructed during the Qianlong era (1736--1795) even though the name of the sculptor(s) have not been retrieved. Moreover, they also give other details such as the fact that they have not always been located at the same place. Not less importantly, they pinpoint a link between these fullerene pattern and the thirteen Archimedean bodies and list two written sources containing the earliest known explanations in Chinese about this subject, that is (1) a geometrical book due to the Jesuit missionary Giacomo Rho (1593--1638), the \textit{Celiang quanyi} (Comprehensive treatise of geometrical measurements, 1631), where Western notions of geometry -- including various kinds of polyhedras -- are translated in Chinese for the first time from Western sources, and a later book by a Chinese mathematician, Mei Wending (1633--1721), the \textit{Jihe bubian} (Complementary notes on geometry, 1692). Here, we also note that other possible important sources can also be mentioned, namely, (1) the \textit{Shuli jingyun} (The principles of mathematics, 1723, Chapters 27, 28, 29), a mathematical encyclopedia sponsored by the Kangxi emperor himself (reign 1661--1722) and (2) an important Western book, Luca Pacioli's \textit{Summa de arithmetica} (1523), because this book belonged to the Jesuit Beitang (Pé-T'ang) library (No. 3385 in the ``Catalogue de la bibliothèque du Pé-T'ang'', Peking, Imprimerie des Lazaristes, 1949). (We also note in passing that, nevertheless, his other famous book -- which is still more important in this respect -- \textit{De divina proportione} is not listed in this catalogue, but this is not a proof that it did not reach China.) Lastly, the authors raise an open question about the Chinese knowledge about polyhedras prior to the arrival of the Jesuit missionaries in China and they also provide a useful bibliography (24 items).