Abstract
The cube, the octahedron, and the tetrahedron obviously have been admired for thousands of years. It is impossible to say who first described them. Certainly the Pythagoreans knew all about them. I understand that a dodecahedron was found in Italy which was apparently made in 500 B.C. or perhaps even earlier, and that icosahedral dice were used by the ancient Egyptians. They can be seen in the British Museum, although there is some doubt about their exact date. All the five so-called Platonic solids are described in the later books of Euclid. Subsequent writers have made it much easier to see that the number of Platonic solids is just five.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2013 Springer Science+Business Media New York
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Coxeter, H.S.M. (2013). Regular and Semiregular Polyhedra. In: Senechal, M. (eds) Shaping Space. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-92714-5_3
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-92714-5_3
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY
Print ISBN: 978-0-387-92713-8
Online ISBN: 978-0-387-92714-5
eBook Packages: Mathematics and StatisticsMathematics and Statistics (R0)