polyhedrons - Hutchinson encyclopedia article about polyhedrons Printer Friendly
The Free Dictionary
1,017,273,626 visitors served.
?
Dictionary/
thesaurus
Medical
dictionary
Legal
dictionary
Financial
dictionary
Acronyms
 
Idioms
Encyclopedia
Wikipedia
encyclopedia
?

polyhedron
(redirected from polyhedrons)

   Also found in: Dictionary/thesaurus, Encyclopedia, Wikipedia 0.06 sec.

polyhedron

Enlarge picture
The five regular polyhedra or Platonic solids.

In geometry, a solid figure with four or more plane faces. The more faces there are on a polyhedron, the more closely it approximates to a sphere. Knowledge of the properties of polyhedra is needed in crystallography and stereochemistry to determine the shapes of crystals and molecules.

There are only five types of regular polyhedron (with all faces the same size and shape), as was deduced by early Greek mathematicians; they are the tetrahedron (four equilateral triangular faces), cube (six square faces), octahedron (eight equilateral triangles), dodecahedron (12 regular pentagons) and icosahedron (20 equilateral triangles).


?Page tools
Printer friendly
Cite / link
Email
Feedback
?Sign in SSL protected
Email:
Password:
Register

? Mentioned in
 
Hutchinson browser? ? Full browser
 
 
Hutchinson Encyclopedia
?

Disclaimer | Privacy policy | Feedback | Copyright © 2008 Farlex, Inc.
All content on this website, including dictionary, thesaurus, literature, geography, and other reference data is for informational purposes only. This information should not be considered complete, up to date, and is not intended to be used in place of a visit, consultation, or advice of a legal, medical, or any other professional.. Terms of Use.