Archimedean Solids

The Archimedean solids, named after Archimedes of Syracuse (3rd century BC), are bounded by regular polygons like the more famous Platonic solids. In contrast to the Platonic solids with only one type of polygons, an Archimedean solid has two or three types of polygons.

• Truncated tetrahedron (8 faces, namely 4 equilateral triangles and 4 regular hexagons)
• Truncated cube (14 faces, namely 8 equilateral triangles and 6 regular octagons)
• Truncated octahedron (14 faces, namely 6 squares and 8 regular hexagons)
• Truncated dodecahedron (32 faces, namely 20 equilateral triangles and 12 regular decagons)
• Truncated icosahedron (32 faces, namely 12 regular pentagons and 20 regular hexagons)
• Cuboctahedron (14 faces, namely 8 equilateral triangles and 6 squares)
• Rhombicuboctahedron (26 faces, namely 8 equilateral triangles and 18 squares)
• Great rhombicuboctahedron (26 faces, namely 12 squares, 8 regular hexagons and 6 regular octagons)
• Icosidodecahedron (32 faces, namely 20 equilateral triangles and 12 regular pentagons)
• Rhombicosidodecahedron (62 faces, namely 20 equilateral triangles, 30 squares and 12 regular pentagons)
• Great rhombicosidodecahedron (62 faces, namely 30 squares, 20 regular hexagons and 12 regular decagons)
• Snub cube (38 faces, namely 32 equilateral triangles and 6 squares)
• Snub dodecahedron (92 faces, namely 80 equilateral triangles and 12 regular pentagons)

The edges of an Archimedean solid are of equal length. All vertices have the same distance from the center, so a circumscribed sphere exists. There are two variants of the two last mentioned polyhedra, which can be transformed into each other by reflection at a plane. Therefore, some authors speak of 13, others of 15 Archimedean solids.

You can specify the type of solid in the selection field of the control panel. It is followed by information on the number of vertices, edges and faces. The position in space can be changed with the large button. The small buttons are used to rotate the solid or to stop the rotation. If desired, the circumscribed sphere can also be drawn in. Note that for a large number of vertices (especially for the great rhombicosidodecahedron) the calculation time can be several seconds.