Object Details
- Description
- This black wire model has a regular dodecahedron at its center and a lacework of wires going out, with numerous pentagons. The outside is a regular dodecahedron, with edges measuring 21.5 cm.
- In the late nineteenth century, several mathematicians thought of ways of envisioning four-dimensional surfaces in three-dimensional space. The German mathematician Victor Schlegel developed a series of wire and thread models for the purpose. The series was first published by Ludwig Brill in 1886.
- This model (presently misshapen and missing its threads) represents the 120-cell. It is the analog of a regular dodecahedron (which has twelve pentagons as faces, three around each vertex). The 120-cell is built up of 120 dodecahedra, three around each edge.
- This example of the model was exhibited at the Columbian Exposition, a World’s Fair held in Chicago in 1893.
- Compare 1985.0112.154 and 1985.0112.159.
- Reference:
- L. Brill, Catalog mathematischer Modelle. . ., Darmstadt: L. Brill, 1892, p. 31, 88.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History
- maker
- L. Brill
- date made
- 1892
- Credit Line
- Gift of Wesleyan University
- Physical Description
- metal (overall material)
- Measurements
- overall: 48.5 cm x 59 cm x 62 cm; 19 3/32 in x 23 7/32 in x 24 13/32 in
- Object Name
- geometric model
- geometric model
