rhombicosidodecahedron

[prettygoodword]

rhombicosidodecahedron - n., an Archimedean solid with 62 regular faces (20 triangles, 30 squares, and 12 pentagons).



Thanks, WikiMedia!

Okay, so it's probably just as much cheating to pull brobdingnagian words from solid geometry as it is from chemistry, but I just love this one -- so fun to say, and so fun to look at. Technically, there are two solids called a rhombicosidodecahedron, of which this is the small rhombicosidodecahedron -- the great rhombicosidodecahedron also has 62 faces, but with 30 squares, 20 hexagons, and 12 decagons. I'm not going to parse out the elements -- er, um, I mean, doing so is left as an exercise for the reader. But I will mention that the name was coined in Latin by Johannes Kepler (in The Harmony of the World, 1619).

---L.

Comments

[med_cat]

cool :)

[prettygoodword]

Very!

[med_cat]

My mom (a math teacher) was interested and said she'd not specifically heard of these two solids before :)

and you probably know this poem

[med_cat]

https://poetrywithmathematics.blogspot.com/2013/05/the-icosasphere.html

Re: and you probably know this poem

[prettygoodword]

I did not! Thank you!

Re: and you probably know this poem

[med_cat]

Hehe, my pleasure! It had puzzled me when I studied it in school ;))

[prettygoodword]

They are not exactly pop-star-level solids.

[med_cat]

That they're not, for sure ;)