Platonic solid

English

A tetrahedron, one of the Platonic solids

Alternative forms

• platonic solid (US)

Etymology

From Platonic + solid, in reference to the Greek philosopher Plato, who in his dialogue Timaeus theorised about a correspondence between these solids and the classical physical elements.

Noun

Platonic solid (plural Platonic solids)

1. (geometry) Any of five convex polyhedra with congruent regular polygonal faces, which have a high degree of symmetry and have been studied since antiquity.
   • 1961, J. S. Griffith, The Theory of Transition-Metal Ions‎^[1], page 41:

     As the names suggest, the groups and their existence are connected to the five Platonic solids. They are in fact the rotation groups of the Platonic solids.

   • 1981, William Irwin Thompson, The Time Falling Bodies Take to Light: Mythology, Sexuality and the Origins of Culture, London: Rider/Hutchinson & Co., page 202:

     The boat which the gods tell Utnapishtim to build is no ordinary boat but a perfect cube with seven levels; the ark resembles more a Platonic solid from the Timaeus than a seaworthy craft.

   • 1993, Aharon Kantorovich, Scientific Discovery: Logic and Tinkering‎^[2], page 160:

     The erroneous number of planets, six, gave him^{[Johannes Kepler]} the clue for his model of five Platonic solids (the five regular convex polyhedra) on which he erected the universe.

   • 2015, Alexander A. Stepanov, Daniel E. Rose, From Mathematics to Generic Programming, page 44:

     In the 13th and final book, he^[Euclid] shows how to construct the five Platonic solids, and proves that they are the only regular polyhedra (bodies whose faces are congruent, regular polygons) that exist.

Hyponyms

• (Any of five polyhedra): cube, dodecahedron, icosahedron, octahedron, regular hexahedron (cube), tetrahedron

Related terms

• Platonic hydrocarbon

Translations

Any one of five polyhedra

• Armenian: please add this translation if you can
• Catalan: sòlid platònic m
• Danish: platonisk legeme n
• Dutch: regelmatig veelvlak n, platonisch lichaam n
• Esperanto: platona solido
• Estonian: please add this translation if you can
• Finnish: Platonin kappale
• French: please add this translation if you can
• Friulian: solit platonic m
• Galician: sólido platónico m
• Georgian: პლატონური სხეული (ṗlaṭonuri sxeuli)
• German: platonischer Körper (de) m
• Hungarian: szabályos test (hu), platóni test (hu)
• Italian: solido platonico
• Latin: corpus rēgulātum n
• Occitan: please add this translation if you can
• Polish: bryła platońska (pl) f
• Portuguese: sólido platónico m (European), sólido platônico m (Brazilian)
• Russian: плато́ново те́ло n (platónovo télo)
• Spanish: sólido platónico m
• Swedish: platonsk kropp (sv)

See also

• Archimedean solid
• Catalan solid
• Johnson solid
• Kepler solid
• Platonic solid on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• Regular 4-polytope on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• List of regular polytopes and compounds on Wikipedia.Wikipedia