In geometry, a vertex configuration[1][2][3][4] is a shorthand notation for representing the vertex figure of a polyhedron or tiling as the sequence of faces around a vertex. For uniform polyhedra there is only one vertex type and therefore the vertex configuration fully defines the polyhedron. (Chiral polyhedra exist in mirror-image pairs with the same vertex configuration.)
A vertex configuration is given as a sequence of numbers representing the number of sides of the faces going around the vertex. The notation "a.b.c" describes a vertex that has 3 faces around it, faces with a, b, and c sides.
For example, "3.5.3.5" indicates a vertex belonging to 4 faces, alternating triangles and pentagons. This vertex configuration defines the vertex-transitiveicosidodecahedron. The notation is cyclic and therefore is equivalent with different starting points, so 3.5.3.5 is the same as 5.3.5.3. The order is important, so 3.3.5.5 is different from 3.5.3.5 (the first has two triangles followed by two pentagons). Repeated elements can be collected as exponents so this example is also represented as (3.5)2.
A vertex configuration can also be represented as a polygonalvertex figure showing the faces around the vertex. This vertex figure has a 3-dimensional structure since the faces are not in the same plane for polyhedra, but for vertex-uniform polyhedra all the neighboring vertices are in the same plane and so this plane projection can be used to visually represent the vertex configuration.
A vertex needs at least 3 faces, and an angle defect. A 0° angle defect will fill the Euclidean plane with a regular tiling. By Descartes' theorem, the number of vertices is 720°/defect (4πradians/defect).
Different notations are used, sometimes with a comma (,) and sometimes a period (.) separator. The period operator is useful because it looks like a product and an exponent notation can be used. For example, 3.5.3.5 is sometimes written as (3.5)2.
The notation can also be considered an expansive form of the simple Schläfli symbol for regular polyhedra. The Schläfli notation {p,q} means qp-gons around each vertex. So {p,q} can be written as p.p.p... (q times) or pq. For example, an icosahedron is {3,5} = 3.3.3.3.3 or 35.
This notation applies to polygonal tilings as well as polyhedra. A planar vertex configuration denotes a uniform tiling just like a nonplanar vertex configuration denotes a uniform polyhedron.
The notation is ambiguous for chiral forms. For example, the snub cube has clockwise and counterclockwise forms which are identical across mirror images. Both have a 3.3.3.3.4 vertex configuration.
Star polygons
The notation also applies for nonconvex regular faces, the star polygons. For example, a pentagram has the symbol {5/2}, meaning it has 5 sides going around the centre twice.
For example, there are 4 regular star polyhedra with regular polygon or star polygon vertex figures. The small stellated dodecahedron has the Schläfli symbol of {5/2,5} which expands to an explicit vertex configuration 5/2.5/2.5/2.5/2.5/2 or combined as (5/2)5. The great stellated dodecahedron, {5/2,3} has a triangular vertex figure and configuration (5/2.5/2.5/2) or (5/2)3. The great dodecahedron, {5,5/2} has a pentagrammic vertex figure, with vertex configuration is (5.5.5.5.5)/2 or (55)/2. A great icosahedron, {3,5/2} also has a pentagrammic vertex figure, with vertex configuration (3.3.3.3.3)/2 or (35)/2.
Faces on a vertex figure are considered to progress in one direction. Some uniform polyhedra have vertex figures with inversions where the faces progress retrograde. A vertex figure represents this in the star polygon notation of sides p/q such that p<2q, where p is the number of sides and q the number of turns around a circle. For example, "3/2" means a triangle that has vertices that go around twice, which is the same as backwards once. Similarly "5/3" is a backwards pentagram 5/2.
All uniform vertex configurations of regular convex polygons
NOTE: The vertex figure can represent a regular or semiregular tiling on the plane if its defect is zero. It can represent a tiling of the hyperbolic plane if its defect is negative.
For uniform polyhedra, the angle defect can be used to compute the number of vertices. Descartes' theorem states that all the angle defects in a topological sphere must sum to 4πradians or 720degrees.
Since uniform polyhedra have all identical vertices, this relation allows us to compute the number of vertices, which is 4π/defect or 720/defect.
Example: A truncated cube 3.8.8 has an angle defect of 30 degrees. Therefore, it has 720/30 = 24 vertices.
In particular it follows that {a,b} has 4 / (2 - b(1 - 2/a)) vertices.
Every enumerated vertex configuration potentially uniquely defines a semiregular polyhedron. However, not all configurations are possible.
Topological requirements limit existence. Specifically p.q.r implies that a p-gon is surrounded by alternating q-gons and r-gons, so either p is even or q equals r. Similarly q is even or p equals r, and r is even or p equals q. Therefore, potentially possible triples are 3.3.3, 3.4.4, 3.6.6, 3.8.8, 3.10.10, 3.12.12, 4.4.n (for any n>2), 4.6.6, 4.6.8, 4.6.10, 4.6.12, 4.8.8, 5.5.5, 5.6.6, 6.6.6. In fact, all these configurations with three faces meeting at each vertex turn out to exist.
The number in parentheses is the number of vertices, determined by the angle defect.
The uniform dual or Catalan solids, including the bipyramids and trapezohedra, are vertically-regular (face-transitive) and so they can be identified by a similar notation which is sometimes called face configuration.[3] Cundy and Rollett prefixed these dual symbols by a V. In contrast, Tilings and patterns uses square brackets around the symbol for isohedral tilings.
This notation represents a sequential count of the number of faces that exist at each vertex around a face.[18] For example, V3.4.3.4 or V(3.4)2 represents the rhombic dodecahedron which is face-transitive: every face is a rhombus, and alternating vertices of the rhombus contain 3 or 4 faces each.
In geometry, an Archimedean solid is one of 13 convex polyhedra whose faces are regular polygons and whose vertices are all symmetric to each other. They were first enumerated by Archimedes. They belong to the class of convex uniform polyhedra, the convex polyhedra with regular faces and symmetric vertices, which is divided into the Archimedean solids, the five Platonic solids, and the two infinite families of prisms and antiprisms. The pseudorhombicuboctahedron is an extra polyhedron with regular faces and congruent vertices, but it is not generally counted as an Archimedean solid because it is not vertex-transitive. An even larger class than the convex uniform polyhedra is the Johnson solids, whose regular polygonal faces do not need to meet in identical vertices.
In geometry, every polyhedron is associated with a second dual structure, where the vertices of one correspond to the faces of the other, and the edges between pairs of vertices of one correspond to the edges between pairs of faces of the other. Such dual figures remain combinatorial or abstract polyhedra, but not all can also be constructed as geometric polyhedra. Starting with any given polyhedron, the dual of its dual is the original polyhedron.
In geometry, a Platonic solid is a convex, regular polyhedron in three-dimensional Euclidean space. Being a regular polyhedron means that the faces are congruent regular polygons, and the same number of faces meet at each vertex. There are only five such polyhedra:
In geometry, the Schläfli symbol is a notation of the form that defines regular polytopes and tessellations.
In mathematics, a Catalan solid, or Archimedean dual, is a polyhedron that is dual to an Archimedean solid. There are 13 Catalan solids. They are named after the Belgian mathematician Eugène Catalan, who first described them in 1865.
In geometry, a disdyakis triacontahedron, hexakis icosahedron, decakis dodecahedron or kisrhombic triacontahedron is a Catalan solid with 120 faces and the dual to the Archimedean truncated icosidodecahedron. As such it is face-uniform but with irregular face polygons. It slightly resembles an inflated rhombic triacontahedron: if one replaces each face of the rhombic triacontahedron with a single vertex and four triangles in a regular fashion, one ends up with a disdyakis triacontahedron. That is, the disdyakis triacontahedron is the Kleetope of the rhombic triacontahedron. It is also the barycentric subdivision of the regular dodecahedron and icosahedron. It has the most faces among the Archimedean and Catalan solids, with the snub dodecahedron, with 92 faces, in second place.
In geometry, a vertex figure, broadly speaking, is the figure exposed when a corner of a polyhedron or polytope is sliced off.
Euclidean plane tilings by convex regular polygons have been widely used since antiquity. The first systematic mathematical treatment was that of Kepler in his Harmonices Mundi.
In geometry, the term semiregular polyhedron is used variously by different authors.
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, a uniform polyhedron has regular polygons as faces and is vertex-transitive. It follows that all vertices are congruent.
In geometry, the triangular tiling or triangular tessellation is one of the three regular tilings of the Euclidean plane, and is the only such tiling where the constituent shapes are not parallelogons. Because the internal angle of the equilateral triangle is 60 degrees, six triangles at a point occupy a full 360 degrees. The triangular tiling has Schläfli symbol of {3,6}.
In geometry, the truncated trihexagonal tiling is one of eight semiregular tilings of the Euclidean plane. There are one square, one hexagon, and one dodecagon on each vertex. It has Schläfli symbol of tr{3,6}.
In geometry, an alternation or partial truncation, is an operation on a polygon, polyhedron, tiling, or higher dimensional polytope that removes alternate vertices.
In geometry, a uniform polytope of dimension three or higher is a vertex-transitive polytope bounded by uniform facets. The uniform polytopes in two dimensions are the regular polygons.
In geometry, a quasiregular polyhedron is a uniform polyhedron that has exactly two kinds of regular faces, which alternate around each vertex. They are vertex-transitive and edge-transitive, hence a step closer to regular polyhedra than the semiregular, which are merely vertex-transitive.
In geometry, a uniform tiling is a tessellation of the plane by regular polygon faces with the restriction of being vertex-transitive.
A dual uniform polyhedron is the dual of a uniform polyhedron. Where a uniform polyhedron is vertex-transitive, a dual uniform polyhedron is face-transitive.
References
Cundy, H. and Rollett, A., Mathematical Models (1952), (3rd edition, 1989, Stradbroke, England: Tarquin Pub.), 3.7 The Archimedean Polyhedra. Pp.101–115, pp.118–119 Table I, Nets of Archimedean Duals, V.a.b.c... as vertically-regular symbols.
Peter Cromwell, Polyhedra, Cambridge University Press (1977) The Archimedean solids. Pp.156–167.
Williams, Robert (1979). The Geometrical Foundation of Natural Structure: A Source Book of Design. Dover Publications, Inc. ISBN0-486-23729-X. Uses Cundy-Rollett symbol.
Grünbaum, Branko; Shephard, G. C. (1987). Tilings and Patterns. W. H. Freeman and Company. ISBN0-7167-1193-1. Pp.58–64, Tilings of regular polygons a.b.c.... (Tilings by regular polygons and star polygons) pp.95–97, 176, 283, 614–620, Monohedral tiling symbol [v1.v2. ... .vr]. pp.632–642 hollow tilings.
The Symmetries of Things 2008, John H. Conway, Heidi Burgiel, Chaim Goodman-Strauss, ISBN978-1-56881-220-5 (p.289 Vertex figures, uses comma separator, for Archimedean solids and tilings).
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