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In geometry, a star polyhedron is a polyhedron which has some repetitive quality of nonconvexity giving it a star-like visual quality.
There are two general kinds of star polyhedron:
Mathematical studies of star polyhedra are usually concerned with regular, uniform polyhedra, or the duals of the uniform polyhedra. All these stars are of the self-intersecting kind.
The regular star polyhedra are self-intersecting polyhedra. They may either have self-intersecting faces, or self-intersecting vertex figures.
There are four regular star polyhedra, known as the Kepler–Poinsot polyhedra. The Schläfli symbol {p,q} implies faces with p sides, and vertex figures with q sides. Two of them have pentagrammic {5/2} faces and two have pentagrammic vertex figures.
These images show each form with a single face colored yellow to show the visible portion of that face.
There are also an infinite number of regular star dihedra and hosohedra {2,p/q} and {p/q,2} for any star polygon {p/q}. While degenerate in Euclidean space, they can be realised spherically in nondegenerate form.
There are many uniform star polyhedra including two infinite series, of prisms and of antiprisms, and their duals.
The uniform and dual uniform star polyhedra are also self-intersecting polyhedra. They may either have self-intersecting faces, or self-intersecting vertex figures or both.
The uniform star polyhedra have regular faces or regular star polygon faces. The dual uniform star polyhedra have regular faces or regular star polygon vertex figures.
Uniform polyhedron | Dual polyhedron |
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The pentagrammic prism is a prismatic star polyhedron. It is composed of two pentagram faces connected by five intersecting square faces. | The pentagrammic dipyramid is also a star polyhedron, representing the dual to the pentagrammic prism. It is face-transitive, composed of ten intersecting isosceles triangles. |
The great dodecicosahedron is a star polyhedron, constructed from a single vertex figure of intersecting hexagonal and decagrammic, {10/3}, faces. | The great dodecicosacron is the dual to the great dodecicosahedron. It is face-transitive, composed of 60 intersecting bow-tie-shaped quadrilateral faces. |
Beyond the forms above, there are unlimited classes of self-intersecting (star) polyhedra.
Two important classes are the stellations of convex polyhedra and their duals, the facettings of the dual polyhedra.
For example, the complete stellation of the icosahedron (illustrated) can be interpreted as a self-intersecting polyhedron composed of 20 identical faces, each a (9/4) wound polygon. Below is an illustration of this polyhedron with one face drawn in yellow.
A similarly self-intersecting polytope in any number of dimensions is called a star polytope.
A regular polytope {p,q,r,...,s,t} is a star polytope if either its facet {p,q,...s} or its vertex figure {q,r,...,s,t} is a star polytope.
In four dimensions, the 10 regular star polychora are called the Schläfli–Hess polychora. Analogous to the regular star polyhedra, these 10 are all composed of facets which are either one of the five regular Platonic solids or one of the four regular star Kepler–Poinsot polyhedra.
For example, the great grand stellated 120-cell, projected orthogonally into 3-space, looks like this:
There are no regular star polytopes in dimensions higher than 4[ citation needed ].
A polyhedron which does not cross itself, such that all of the interior can be seen from one interior point, is an example of a star domain. The visible exterior portions of many self-intersecting star polyhedra form the boundaries of star domains, but despite their similar appearance, as abstract polyhedra these are different structures. For instance, the small stellated dodecahedron has 12 pentagram faces, but the corresponding star domain has 60 isosceles triangle faces, and correspondingly different numbers of vertices and edges.
Polyhedral star domains appear in various types of architecture, usually religious in nature. For example, they are seen on many baroque churches as symbols of the Pope who built the church, on Hungarian churches and on other religious buildings. These stars can also be used as decorations. Moravian stars are used for both purposes and can be constructed in various forms.
In geometry, a Kepler–Poinsot polyhedron is any of four regular star polyhedra.
In geometry, a polyhedral compound is a figure that is composed of several polyhedra sharing a common centre. They are the three-dimensional analogs of polygonal compounds such as the hexagram.
In geometry, a 4-polytope is a four-dimensional polytope. It is a connected and closed figure, composed of lower-dimensional polytopal elements: vertices, edges, faces (polygons), and cells (polyhedra). Each face is shared by exactly two cells. The 4-polytopes were discovered by the Swiss mathematician Ludwig Schläfli before 1853.
In geometry, stellation is the process of extending a polygon in two dimensions, a polyhedron in three dimensions, or, in general, a polytope in n dimensions to form a new figure. Starting with an original figure, the process extends specific elements such as its edges or face planes, usually in a symmetrical way, until they meet each other again to form the closed boundary of a new figure. The new figure is a stellation of the original. The word stellation comes from the Latin stellātus, "starred", which in turn comes from the Latin stella, "star". Stellation is the reciprocal or dual process to faceting.
A regular polyhedron is a polyhedron whose symmetry group acts transitively on its flags. A regular polyhedron is highly symmetrical, being all of edge-transitive, vertex-transitive and face-transitive. In classical contexts, many different equivalent definitions are used; a common one is that the faces are congruent regular polygons which are assembled in the same way around each vertex.
In geometry, the Schläfli symbol is a notation of the form that defines regular polytopes and tessellations.
In geometry, a vertex figure, broadly speaking, is the figure exposed when a corner of a polyhedron or polytope is sliced off.
In geometry, a uniform 4-polytope is a 4-dimensional polytope which is vertex-transitive and whose cells are uniform polyhedra, and faces are regular polygons.
In geometry, the great dodecahedron is one of four Kepler–Poinsot polyhedra. It is composed of 12 pentagonal faces, intersecting each other making a pentagrammic path, with five pentagons meeting at each vertex.
In geometry, the complete or final stellation of the icosahedron is the outermost stellation of the icosahedron, and is "complete" and "final" because it includes all of the cells in the icosahedron's stellation diagram. That is, every three intersecting face planes of the icosahedral core intersect either on a vertex of this polyhedron or inside of it. It was studied by Max Brückner after the discovery of Kepler–Poinsot polyhedron. It can be viewed as an irregular, simple, and star polyhedron.
In geometry, the great stellated dodecahedron is a Kepler–Poinsot polyhedron, with Schläfli symbol {5⁄2,3}. It is one of four nonconvex regular polyhedra.
In geometry, the great icosahedron is one of four Kepler–Poinsot polyhedra, with Schläfli symbol {3,5⁄2} and Coxeter-Dynkin diagram of . It is composed of 20 intersecting triangular faces, having five triangles meeting at each vertex in a pentagrammic sequence.
In geometry, a truncation is an operation in any dimension that cuts polytope vertices, creating a new facet in place of each vertex. The term originates from Kepler's names for the Archimedean solids.
In geometry, a uniform polytope of dimension three or higher is a vertex-transitive polytope bounded by uniform facets. Here, "vertex-transitive" means that it has symmetries taking every vertex to every other vertex; the same must also be true within each lower-dimensional face of the polytope. In two dimensions a stronger definition is used: only the regular polygons are considered as uniform, disallowing polygons that alternate between two different lengths of edges.
In geometry, the great grand stellated 120-cell or great grand stellated polydodecahedron is a regular star 4-polytope with Schläfli symbol {5/2,3,3}, one of 10 regular Schläfli-Hess 4-polytopes. It is unique among the 10 for having 600 vertices, and has the same vertex arrangement as the regular convex 120-cell.
In geometry, the icosahedral 120-cell, polyicosahedron, faceted 600-cell or icosaplex is a regular star 4-polytope with Schläfli symbol {3,5,5/2}. It is one of 10 regular Schläfli-Hess polytopes.
In geometry, faceting is the process of removing parts of a polygon, polyhedron or polytope, without creating any new vertices.
In mathematics, a regular 4-polytope or regular polychoron is a regular four-dimensional polytope. They are the four-dimensional analogues of the regular polyhedra in three dimensions and the regular polygons in two dimensions.
In geometry, the density of a star polyhedron is a generalization of the concept of winding number from two dimensions to higher dimensions, representing the number of windings of the polyhedron around the center of symmetry of the polyhedron. It can be determined by passing a ray from the center to infinity, passing only through the facets of the polytope and not through any lower dimensional features, and counting how many facets it passes through. For polyhedra for which this count does not depend on the choice of the ray, and for which the central point is not itself on any facet, the density is given by this count of crossed facets.