This media is in the public domain (free of copyright restrictions). You can copy, modify, and distribute this work without contacting the Smithsonian. For more information, visit the Smithsonian's ...

The distinctive three-dimensional shape in Albrecht Dürer’s 1514 engraving Melencolia I has been the subject of innumerous analyses and still no one is sure what it is or what it means. On the ...

For most people, the word “polyhedron” conjures up an image of a cube, a tetrahedron, or something similar—a solid figure with flat faces. If the polyhedron is regular, each face has the same size and ...

The work of the Greek polymath Plato has kept millions of people busy for millennia. A few among them have been mathematicians who have obsessed about Platonic solids, a class of geometric forms that ...

Flat hexagons and pentagons come together in new twist on old polyhedra In the latest verse of a centuries-old mathematical refrain, scientists have figured a way to iron out the wrinkles in a large ...