Faceted snub cube

For general discussion of polyhedra, not necessarily Stella-specific.
Post Reply
User avatar
robertw
Site Admin
Posts: 676
Joined: Thu Jan 10, 2008 6:47 am
Location: Melbourne, Australia
Contact:

Faceted snub cube

Post by robertw » Mon Feb 11, 2008 6:46 am

I just discovered an interesting little faceting of the snub cube. Has anyone seen it before?

It's interesting because it has just one face-type, an irregular pentagon no less, and it a true polyhedron, not a compound. The only other isohedral facetings (ie having just one face type) appear to be compounds of disphenoids (irregular tetrahedra).

Image Image

User avatar
guy
Posts: 86
Joined: Mon Feb 11, 2008 10:30 am
Location: England
Contact:

Post by guy » Mon Feb 11, 2008 10:39 am

Hi Rob, I bet you only posted this so it would hook me in! ;)

I am new to this forum, so I hope I am not repeating stuff the rest of you already know.

Like the snub cube (and all uniform polyhedra), this facetting has vertices all alike within its symmetry - we say that it is isogonal.
As you say, it has faces all alike too - it is isohedral.
A polyhedron which is both isogonal and isohedral is called noble.

Noble polyhedra were first studied in depth by Bruckner, a hundred years ago. Since then, Branko Grünbaum has revived interest in them. I wonder if this one has been described before.

User avatar
robertw
Site Admin
Posts: 676
Joined: Thu Jan 10, 2008 6:47 am
Location: Melbourne, Australia
Contact:

Post by robertw » Mon Feb 11, 2008 12:55 pm

guy wrote:I bet you only posted this so it would hook me in! ;)
I wouldn't say "only" :D
I am new to this forum, so I hope I am not repeating stuff the rest of you already know.
The forum's for anyone and everyone, so don't worry about repeating anything people might already know.
Like the snub cube (and all uniform polyhedra), this facetting has vertices all alike within its symmetry - we say that it is isogonal.
As you say, it has faces all alike too - it is isohedral.
A polyhedron which is both isogonal and isohedral is called noble.
Oh yeah, somehow I wasn't even thinking about the fact that it was isogonal as well :?

By the way, the same thing doesn't work with the snub dodecahedron, in case anyone was wondering, because the edges placed diagonally across the pentagons leave a pentagrammic hole to fill, where as those across the square faces of the snub cube meet others to close the shape.
Noble polyhedra were first studied in depth by Bruckner, a hundred years ago. Since then, Branko Grünbaum has revived interest in them. I wonder if this one has been described before.
Yeah, Bruckner's 1906 isogonal isohedra can be found in the Stella Library with Great Stella and Stella4D, but this one was not amongst them.

I just noticed that it is self-dual too, so it is also a stellation of the pentagonal icositetrahedron, dual of the snub cube.

Rob.

User avatar
Nordehylop
Posts: 21
Joined: Wed Feb 27, 2008 6:04 pm
Location: Illinois, USA
Contact:

Post by Nordehylop » Wed Feb 27, 2008 10:17 pm

Very interesting polyhedron! Since it is a faceting of the snub cube it has a sort of twisted look. It looks almost "compoundish', but it isn't a compound...
This is what I love about Stella!
It's always darkest just before it goes pitch black.

Kathy
Posts: 10
Joined: Fri Jan 18, 2008 3:41 pm
Location: Arkansas, USA

I made one

Post by Kathy » Fri Jun 29, 2012 3:07 pm

:) I saw this on Wed. and just loved it. Now I am wanting to make more faceted poly.
At first I was using 6 colors but had to use 8. 3 faces of each color. Has anyone else made one?
Thanks.
I just love Polyhedra,
Kathy

User avatar
guy
Posts: 86
Joined: Mon Feb 11, 2008 10:30 am
Location: England
Contact:

Post by guy » Sat Jun 30, 2012 3:21 pm

Its self-duality just made me realise that its abstract form appears to be regular, so we could write it as {5 5}

V-E+F = 24-60+24 = -12 so topologically it is a toroid of genus (2-(-12))/2 = 7
(where V = number of vertices, E = number of edges, F = number of faces).

I wonder if this regular abstract toriod is already known. Rob, have you asked around?

Note that with these funny topologies, the symbol {5 5} is not unique to this figure, so if other {5 5} figures have been described, it doesn't necessarily mean that this one has. For example there is a well-known {5 5} tiling of the hyperbolic plane.

Kathy
Posts: 10
Joined: Fri Jan 18, 2008 3:41 pm
Location: Arkansas, USA

Here it is

Post by Kathy » Mon Jul 02, 2012 9:23 pm

I just love Polyhedra,
Kathy

User avatar
guy
Posts: 86
Joined: Mon Feb 11, 2008 10:30 am
Location: England
Contact:

Post by guy » Tue Jul 03, 2012 7:55 pm

@Kathy, Yes, I can see it fine - and if my clunky box can see it, most anybody can. Lovely model!

As a follow-up to my previous post, I am told that it does not have a regular "abstract" structure. In fact it is possibly the only known noble and self-dual polyhedron that is not regular in structure.

Kathy
Posts: 10
Joined: Fri Jan 18, 2008 3:41 pm
Location: Arkansas, USA

Fun to make

Post by Kathy » Wed Jul 04, 2012 1:43 pm

I had fun making this model because it wasn't obvious what color went where. Also when you look at it you can turn it just a tad and it looks like a totally different model.
I think a small one would be very difficult to make.
8)
I just love Polyhedra,
Kathy

User avatar
Ulrich
Posts: 165
Joined: Tue Jan 29, 2008 8:08 am
Location: Germany
Contact:

Post by Ulrich » Wed Jul 04, 2012 1:53 pm

robertw wrote: By the way, the same thing doesn't work with the snub dodecahedron, in case anyone was wondering, because the edges placed diagonally across the pentagons leave a pentagrammic hole to fill, where as those across the square faces of the snub cube meet others to close the shape.
But at least that shape is isogonal so its dual is set up of one kind of hexagons only:

Image

Ulrich

User avatar
Ulrich
Posts: 165
Joined: Tue Jan 29, 2008 8:08 am
Location: Germany
Contact:

Post by Ulrich » Mon Mar 11, 2013 12:53 pm

This is my model of Robert's facetted snub cube:

Image

I call it "24 scalars".

Ulrich

User avatar
robertw
Site Admin
Posts: 676
Joined: Thu Jan 10, 2008 6:47 am
Location: Melbourne, Australia
Contact:

Post by robertw » Mon Mar 11, 2013 2:38 pm

Ulrich, I like the fish design :)

Someday I must make a model of this myself!
Rob.

Kathy
Posts: 10
Joined: Fri Jan 18, 2008 3:41 pm
Location: Arkansas, USA

Faceted Snub Cube

Post by Kathy » Mon Mar 11, 2013 4:40 pm

Ulrich, I see you have internal pieces. I thought this looked like fish also. You do great work.
Kathy
I just love Polyhedra,
Kathy

User avatar
Ulrich
Posts: 165
Joined: Tue Jan 29, 2008 8:08 am
Location: Germany
Contact:

Re: Faceted Snub Cube

Post by Ulrich » Thu Mar 28, 2013 7:14 pm

Thanks!

This is a picture of my model of the dual of the other one, derived from the snub dodecahedron:

Image

It is made of one kind of crossed hexagons

Ulrich

Post Reply