The Catalan solids are the

dual polyhedra In geometry, every polyhedron is associated with a second dual structure, where the vertices of one correspond to the faces of the other, and the edges between pairs of vertices of one correspond to the edges between pairs of faces of the other ...

Archimedean solid The Archimedean solids are a set of thirteen convex polyhedra whose faces are regular polygon and are vertex-transitive, although they aren't face-transitive. The solids were named after Archimedes, although he did not claim credit for them. They ...

s. The Archimedean solids are thirteen highly-symmetric polyhedra with regular faces and symmetric vertices. The faces of the Catalan solids correspond by duality to the vertices of Archimedean solids, and vice versa. One way to construct the Catalan solids is by using the Dorman Luke construction. The Catalan solids are

face-transitive In geometry, a tessellation of dimension (a plane tiling) or higher, or a polytope of dimension (a polyhedron) or higher, is isohedral or face-transitive if all its Face (geometry), faces are the same. More specifically, all faces must be not ...

or ''isohedral'' meaning that their faces are symmetric to one another, but they are not

vertex-transitive In geometry, a polytope (e.g. a polygon or polyhedron) or a tiling is isogonal or vertex-transitive if all its vertices are equivalent under the symmetries of the figure. This implies that each vertex is surrounded by the same kinds of face i ...

because their vertices are not symmetric. Their dual, the Archimedean solids, are vertex-transitive but not face-transitive. Each Catalan solid has constant dihedral angles, meaning the angle between any two adjacent faces is the same. Additionally, two Catalan solids, the

rhombic dodecahedron In geometry, the rhombic dodecahedron is a Polyhedron#Convex_polyhedra, convex polyhedron with 12 congruence (geometry), congruent rhombus, rhombic face (geometry), faces. It has 24 edge (geometry), edges, and 14 vertex (geometry), vertices of 2 ...

and

rhombic triacontahedron The rhombic triacontahedron, sometimes simply called the triacontahedron as it is the most common thirty-faced polyhedron, is a convex polyhedron with 30 rhombus, rhombic face (geometry), faces. It has 60 edge (geometry), edges and 32 vertex ...

, are

edge-transitive In geometry, a polytope (for example, a polygon or a polyhedron) or a Tessellation, tiling is isotoxal () or edge-transitive if its Symmetry, symmetries act Transitive group action, transitively on its Edge (geometry), edges. Informally, this mea ...

, meaning their edges are symmetric to each other. Some Catalan solids were discovered by

Johannes Kepler Johannes Kepler (27 December 1571 – 15 November 1630) was a German astronomer, mathematician, astrologer, Natural philosophy, natural philosopher and writer on music. He is a key figure in the 17th-century Scientific Revolution, best know ...

during his study of

zonohedra In geometry, a zonohedron is a convex polyhedron that is point symmetry, centrally symmetric, every face of which is a polygon that is centrally symmetric (a zonogon). Any zonohedron may equivalently be described as the Minkowski addition, Minkows ...

, and Eugene Catalan completed the list of the thirteen solids in 1865. Two Catalan solids, the

pentagonal icositetrahedron In geometry, a pentagonal icositetrahedron or pentagonal icosikaitetrahedron is a Catalan solid which is the Dual polyhedron, dual of the snub cube. In crystallography it is also called a gyroid. It has two distinct forms, which are mirror image ...

and the pentagonal hexecontahedron, are

chiral Chirality () is a property of asymmetry important in several branches of science. The word ''chirality'' is derived from the Greek language, Greek (''kheir''), "hand", a familiar chiral object. An object or a system is ''chiral'' if it is dist ...

, meaning that these two solids are not their own mirror images. They are dual to the snub cube and

snub dodecahedron In geometry, the snub dodecahedron, or snub icosidodecahedron, is an Archimedean solid, one of thirteen convex Isogonal figure, isogonal nonprismatic solids constructed by two or more types of regular polygon Face (geometry), faces. The snub dod ...

respectively, which are also chiral. Eleven of the thirteen Catalan solids are known to have the Rupert property that a copy of the same solid can be passed through a hole in the solid.

References

Footnotes

Works cited

* . * . * . * . * * * (Section 3-9)

External links

* *
Catalan Solids
– at Visual Polyhedra

– at Virtual Reality Polyhedra

in Java
Download link for Catalan's original 1865 publication
– with beautiful figures, PDF format {{DEFAULTSORT:Catalan Solid * Polyhedra