Artwork Inspired by Dual Dodecahedra and Icosahedra
Stephen Wassell and Mark Reynolds

Proceedings of Bridges 2017: Mathematics, Art, Music, Architecture, Education, Culture
Pages 125–130
Regular Papers

Abstract

A long-standing collaboration between an artist and a mathematician bears new fruit in the form of novel geometric constructions and several works of art based on them. The inspiration for the present collaboration is a recent result on the edge-length ratios between dual regular dodecahedra and icosahedra, specifically the two vertex-to-face pairings of these dual Platonic solids: when the icosahedron circumscribes the dodecahedron, the edge-length ratio is 𝜙/3, and conversely, when the dodecahedron circumscribes the icosahedron, the edge-length ratio is 𝜙2/√5, where 𝜙 is the golden number. These two edge-length ratios are the basis for the geometric constructions and the resulting artwork, which highlight interesting characteristics of the two ratios, both individually and as they relate to each other.

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