Early life and education
Born to German immigrants in Park Falls, Wisconsin, Joseph Wenninger always knew he was going to be a priest. From an early age, it was understood that his brother Heinie would take after their father and become a baker, and that Joe, as he was then known, would go into the priesthood. When Wenninger was thirteen, after graduating from the parochial school in Park Falls, Wisconsin, his parents saw an advertisement in the German newspaper ''Der Wanderer'' that would help to shape the rest of his life. The ad was for a preparatory school in Collegeville, Minnesota, associated with the Benedictine St. John's University. While admitting to feeling homesick at first, Wenninger quickly made friends and, after a year, knew that this was where he needed to be. He was a student in a section of the prep school that functioned as a "minor seminary" – later moving on into St. John's where he studied philosophy and theology, which led into the priesthood.Career
Publications
Wenninger's first publication on the topic of polyhedra was the booklet entitled, "Polyhedron Models for the Classroom", which he wrote in 1966. He wrote to H. S. M. Coxeter and received a copy of ''Uniform polyhedra ''which had a complete list of all 75See also
* List of Wenninger polyhedron modelsissue 02
*, LAB Issue 02, June 2008 *Publications
* * Reprinted by Dover 1999 * Complete publications, arranged chronologically: *1963-69 **''Stellated Rhombic Dodecahedron Puzzle'' The Mathematics Teacher (March 1963). **''The World of Polyhedrons'' The Mathematics Teacher (March 1965). **''Some Facts About Uniform Polyhedrons.'' Summation: Association of Teachers of Mathematics of New York City. 11:6 (June 1966) 33–35. **''Fancy Shapes from Geometric Figures.'' Grade Teacher 84:4 (December 1966) 61–63, 129–130. *1970-79 **''Polyhedron Models for the Classroom'' National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, 1966, 2nd Edition, 1975. Spanish language edition: Olsina, Spain, 1975. **''Some Interesting Octahedral Compounds'' The Mathematics Gazette (February 1968). **''A New Look for the Old Platonic Solids'' Summation: Journal of the Association of Teachers of Mathematics (Winter 1971). **''Polyhedron Models'' Cambridge University Press, London and New York. 1971. Paperback Edition, 1974. Reprinted 1975, 1976, 1978, 1979, 1981, 1984, 1985, 1987, 1989, 1990. Russian language edition: Mir, Moscow, 1974; Japanese language edition: Dainippon, Tokyo, 1979. **''The Story of Polyhedron Models.'' American Benedictine Review (June 1972). **''News from the World of Polyhedrons.'' Summation (Association of Teachers of Mathematics of New York City) 20:2 (Winter 1975) 3–5. **''A Compound of Five Dodecahedra'' The Mathematical Gazette. LX (1976). **''Geodesic Domes by Euclidean Construction.'' The Mathematics Teacher (October 1978). **''Spherical Models'' Cambridge University Press, London and New York (1979); paperback edition, 1979. ** ''Fuller figure'' (Reader Reflections). Mathematics Teacher 72 (March 1979) 164. *1980-89 ** ''Avenues for Polyhedronal Research'' Structural Topology, No. 5 (1980). ** ''Dual Models'' Cambridge University Press, London and New York, 1983. ** ''Polyhedron Posters'' Palo Alto: Dale Seymour Publications, 1983. ** Senechal, M. and G. Fleck, eds. ''The Great Stellated Dodecahedron.'' Part 2. Section C. Shaping Space. Boston: Birkhauser, 1988. ** Messer, P., jt. author. ''Symmetry and Polyhedronal Stellation.'' II. Computers and Mathematics with Applications (Pergamon Press) 17:1-3 (1989). *1990-99 ** ''Polyhedrons and the Golden Number'' Symmetry 1:1 (1990). ** ''Artistic Tessellation Patterns on the Spherical Surface'' International Journal of Space Structures (Multi-Science Publ.) 5:3-4 (1990). ** Tarnai, T., jt.-author. ''Spherical Circle-Coverings and Geodesic Domes'' Structural Topology, No. 16 (1990). ** Messer, P., jt.-author. ''Patterns on the Spherical Surface'' International Journal of Space Structures 11:1 & 2 (1996). ** ''Spherical Models'' Dover Publications, New York (1999). Republication of the work published by Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, England, 1979. New Appendix. Paperbound. *2000- ** ''Symmetrical Patterns on a Sphere," essay #5 in Part I, of a two-part work, Symmetry 2000, containing 52 essays. Edited by Istvan Hargittai and Torvard C. Laurent, Wenner-Gren International Series, Volume 80, London: Portland Press (2002), pp. 41-51. ** ''Memoirs of a Polyhedronist'', ''Symmetry: Culture and Science'', 11:1-4 (2000) 7-15. The Quarterly of the International Society for the Interdisciplinary Study of Symmetry (ISIS-Symmetry).Further reading
* Casey, Henry T. "Shaping of a Life," Patek Philippe Magazine 3:4 (Spring 2011) 38–43. * Chapnick, Philip. "The Great Inverted Retrosnub Icosidodecahedron," The Sciences 12:6 (July–August 1972) 16-19. * Lee, Frank. "Absorbed in ... art?" St. Cloud Times (February 3, 2007) 1C, 3C. * Messer, Peter. "Stellations of the Rhombic Triacontahedron and Beyond," Structural Topology, No. 21. Montreal, 995. * Peterson, Ivars. "Papercraft Polyhedrons," Science News, 169:16 (April 22, 2006). * Roberts, Siobhan. King of Infinite Space, Donald Coxeter, the Man Who Saved Geometry. New York: Walker, 2006, pp. 221, 327, 351. * Schattschneider, Doris. "Coxeter and the Artists: Two-way Inspiration," In The Coxeter Legacy, Reflections and Projections, ed. by Chandler Davis, Erich W. Ellers. American Mathematical Society, 2006, pp. 258–60. * Stevens, Charles B. "In the Footsteps of Kepler, A Master Polyhedrons Builder Demonstrates His Art," 21st Century Science and Technology 8:4 (Winter 1995-1996). * Verheyen, Hugo. Symmetry Orbits. Boston: Birkhauser, 1996. * Theisen, Wilfred OSB. "A Padre's Passion for Polyhedrons," The Abbey Banner 2:1 (Spring 2002).References
*''Interview with Fr. Magnus J. Wenninger O.S.B.'' by Thomas F. Banchoff. Symmetry: Culture and Science, 13:1-2 (2002) 63–70. The Journal of the Symmetrion. Budapest, HungarExternal links