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 ...

, the great stellated dodecahedron is a Kepler-Poinsot polyhedron, with

Schläfli symbol In geometry, the Schläfli symbol is a notation of the form \ that defines regular polytopes and tessellations. The Schläfli symbol is named after the 19th-century Swiss mathematician Ludwig Schläfli, who generalized Euclidean geometry to mo ...

. It is one of four

nonconvex A convex polytope is a special case of a polytope, having the additional property that it is also a convex set contained in the n-dimensional Euclidean space \mathbb^n. Most texts. use the term "polytope" for a bounded convex polytope, and the wo ...

regular polyhedra. It is composed of 12 intersecting

pentagram A pentagram (sometimes known as a pentalpha, pentangle, or star pentagon) is a regular five-pointed star polygon, formed from the diagonal line segments of a convex (or simple, or non-self-intersecting) regular pentagon. Drawing a circle arou ...

mic faces, with three pentagrams meeting at each vertex. It shares its

vertex arrangement In geometry, a vertex arrangement is a set of points in space described by their relative positions. They can be described by their use in polytopes. For example, a ''square vertex arrangement'' is understood to mean four points in a plane, equa ...

, although not its

vertex figure In geometry, a vertex figure, broadly speaking, is the figure exposed when a corner of a polyhedron or polytope is sliced off. Definitions Take some corner or vertex of a polyhedron. Mark a point somewhere along each connected edge. Draw line ...

or vertex configuration, with the regular

dodecahedron In geometry, a dodecahedron (Greek , from ''dōdeka'' "twelve" + ''hédra'' "base", "seat" or "face") or duodecahedron is any polyhedron with twelve flat faces. The most familiar dodecahedron is the regular dodecahedron with regular pentagon ...

, as well as being a

stellation In geometry, stellation is the process of extending a polygon in two dimensions, polyhedron in three dimensions, or, in general, a polytope in ''n'' dimensions to form a new figure. Starting with an original figure, the process extends specif ...

of a (smaller) dodecahedron. It is the only dodecahedral stellation with this property, apart from the dodecahedron itself. Its dual, the great icosahedron, is related in a similar fashion to the

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 symmetrica ...

. Shaving the triangular pyramids off results in an

. If the pentagrammic faces are broken into triangles, it is topologically related to the

triakis icosahedron In geometry, the triakis icosahedron (or kisicosahedronConway, Symmetries of things, p.284) is an Archimedean dual solid, or a Catalan solid. Its dual is the truncated dodecahedron. Cartesian coordinates Let \phi be the golden ratio. The 12 ...

, with the same face connectivity, but much taller

isosceles In geometry, an isosceles triangle () is a triangle that has two sides of equal length. Sometimes it is specified as having ''exactly'' two sides of equal length, and sometimes as having ''at least'' two sides of equal length, the latter versio ...

triangle faces. If the triangles are instead made to invert themselves and excavate the central icosahedron, the result is a great dodecahedron. The great stellated dodecahedron can be constructed analogously to the pentagram, its two-dimensional analogue, by attempting to stellate the ''n''-dimensional

pentagonal polytope In geometry, a pentagonal polytope is a regular polytope in ''n'' dimensions constructed from the H''n'' Coxeter group. The family was named by H. S. M. Coxeter, because the two-dimensional pentagonal polytope is a pentagon. It can be named by its ...

which has pentagonal polytope faces and simplex vertex figures until it can no longer be stellated; that is, it is its final stellation.

Images

Related polyhedra

Great stellated dodecahedron truncations

A truncation process applied to the great stellated dodecahedron produces a series of uniform polyhedra. Truncating edges down to points produces the

great icosidodecahedron In geometry, the great icosidodecahedron is a nonconvex uniform polyhedron, indexed as U54. It has 32 faces (20 triangles and 12 pentagrams), 60 edges, and 30 vertices. It is given a Schläfli symbol r. It is the rectification of the great stel ...

as a rectified great stellated dodecahedron. The process completes as a birectification, reducing the original faces down to points, and producing the great icosahedron. The truncated ''great stellated dodecahedron'' is a degenerate polyhedron, with 20 triangular faces from the truncated vertices, and 12 (hidden) pentagonal faces as truncations of the original pentagram faces, the latter forming a great dodecahedron inscribed within and sharing the edges of the icosahedron.

References

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External links

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Uniform polyhedra and duals
{{Nonconvex polyhedron navigator Polyhedral stellation Regular polyhedra Kepler–Poinsot polyhedra