Purely Platonic

Purely Platonic
A dodecahedron table lamp
Charles Platt | Make Vol. 11- 2007 | Pdf | pgs | mb

People appear symmetrical, but even the most
perfect human face shows irregularities if we
compare the left side with the right. Perhaps this
is why the absolute, rigid symmetry of crystals
seems beautiful yet alien to us. Unlike DNA's
soft spiral, a crystal's molecular bonds align
themselves to form regular three-dimensional
structures.,which the Greeks considered math-
ematically pure. The most fundamental of these
shapes are known as the five Platonic solids.

If you assemble equal-sided triangles -- all the
same size, with the same angles to each other --
you can create three possible solids: a tetrahedron
(with 4 faces), an octahedron (8 faces), and an
icosahedron (20 faces). If you use squares instead
of triangles, you can create only a hexahedron,
commonly known as a cube. Pentagons create a
dodecahedron (12 faces), and that's as far as we
can go. No other solid objects can be built with all-
identical. equal-sided, equal-angled polygons.

The Platonic solids have always fascinated me.
My favorite is the dodecahedron. which is why
I used it in this project as the basis for a table lamp.
By extending its edges to form points, we make
something that looks not only mathematically
perfect, but perhaps a little magical.

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