Catalan solid

In mathematics, a Catalan solid, or Archimedean dual, is a dual polyhedron to an Archimedean solid. The Catalan solids are named for the Belgian mathematician, Eugène Catalan who first described them in 1865.

The Catalan solids are all convex. They are face-transitive but not vertex-transitive. This is because the dual Archimedean solids are vertex-transitive and not face-transitive. Note that unlike Platonic solids and Archimedean solids, the faces of Catalan solids are "not" regular polygons. However, the vertex figures of Catalan solids are regular, and they have constant dihedral angles. Additionally, two of the Catalan solids are edge-transitive: the rhombic dodecahedron and the rhombic triacontahedron. These are the duals of the two quasi-regular Archimedean solids.

Just like their dual Archimedean partners there are two chiral Catalan solids: the pentagonal icositetrahedron and the pentagonal hexecontahedron. These each come in two enantiomorphs. Not counting the enantiomorphs there are a total of 13 Catalan solids.

See also

* List of uniform tilings Shows dual uniform polygonal tilings similar to the Catalan solids
* Conway polyhedron notation A notational construction process

References

* Eugène Catalan "Mémoire sur la Théorie des Polyèdres." J. l'École Polytechnique (Paris) 41, 1-71, 1865.
* Alan Holden "Shapes, Space, and Symmetry". New York: Dover, 1991.
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* (Section 3-9)

External links

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*GlossaryForHyperspace | anchor=Catalan | title=Catalan
* [http://www.georgehart.com/virtual-polyhedra/archimedean-duals-info.html Archimedean duals] – at Virtual Reality Polyhedra
* [http://ibiblio.org/e-notes/3Dapp/Catalan.htm Interactive Catalan Solid] in Java
* [http://archinstitute.blogspot.com Housing Construction using the Rhombic Dodecahedron]