The Pythagoreans, legend has it, saw each of the regular solids as a symbol of one of the elements: tetrahedron fire<\/i>, octahedron air<\/i>, icosahedron water<\/i>, cube earth<\/i> — leaving the dodecahedron to stand for the universe, or quintessence, or spirit. It’s rather a pity that they weren’t so named, pyromorph, aeromorph, hydromorph, geomorph, cosmomorph<\/i>; the nomenclature of the other uniform polytopes (particularly those of four dimensions) would be somewhat cleaner.<\/p>\n
2004 Oct 04:<\/strong> It is a charming coincidence that the cosmos was briefly<\/a> suspected of being cosmomorphic<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Pythagoreans, legend has it, saw each of the regular solids as a symbol of one of the elements: tetrahedron fire, octahedron air, icosahedron water, cube earth — leaving the dodecahedron to stand for the universe, or quintessence, or spirit. … Continue reading