In this lesson on three-dimensional solids, you've seen a lot of polyhedra. But there are five special polyhedra — known collectively as the Platonic solids — that are different from all the others.
What makes the Platonic solids special? Well, two things, actually.
1. They are the only polyhedra whose faces are all exactly the same. Every face is identical to every other face. For instance, a cube is a Platonic solid because all six of its faces are congruent squares.
2. The same number of faces meet at each vertex. Every vertex has the same number of adjacent faces as every other vertex. For example, three equilateral triangles meet at each vertex of a tetrahedron.
No other polyhedra satisfy both of these conditions. Consider a pentagonal prism. It satisfies the second condition because three faces meet at each vertex, but it violates the first condition because the faces are not identical — some are pentagons and some are rectangles.
In this lesson on three-dimensional solids, you've seen a lot of polyhedra. But there are five special polyhedra — known collectively as the Platonic solids — that are different from all the others.
What makes the Platonic solids special? Well, two things, actually.
1. They are the only polyhedra whose faces are all exactly the same. Every face is identical to every other face. For instance, a cube is a Platonic solid because all six of its faces are congruent squares.
2. The same number of faces meet at each vertex. Every vertex has the same number of adjacent faces as every other vertex. For example, three equilateral triangles meet at each vertex of a tetrahedron.
No other polyhedra satisfy both of these conditions. Consider a pentagonal prism. It satisfies the second condition because three faces meet at each vertex, but it violates the first condition because the faces are not identical — some are pentagons and some are rectangles.
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