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Ad Quadratum Construction and Study of the Regular Polyhedra

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Comparison with Orthoscheme Approach:<br />

39<br />

Schläfli 14 established general formulae giving <strong>the</strong> ratio between <strong>the</strong> radii <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong>se spheres<br />

based on <strong>the</strong> study <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> decomposition <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> polyhedra in orthoschemes which are<br />

oppositely congruent tetrahedra making up our pyramids. The decomposition is made<br />

along <strong>the</strong> axis <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> pyramid giving as many orthoschemes as sides to <strong>the</strong> face <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong><br />

polyhedron under study. Fur<strong>the</strong>rmore, <strong>the</strong> four faces <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong>se tetrahedra are right<br />

triangles, <strong>and</strong> <strong>the</strong> lengths <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> three edges meeting at <strong>the</strong> polyhedron center are radii <strong>of</strong><br />

<strong>the</strong> circumsphere, insphere, <strong>and</strong> intersphere respectively.<br />

Such an orthoscheme is shown for <strong>the</strong> cube in fig. 29:<br />

O R Radius circumference = R<br />

2 R = radius insphere = r<br />

1 R = radius intersphere = ri<br />

Schläfli formulae are:<br />

cos 0103<br />

0003<br />

1R<br />

0 R cos <br />

p cos<br />

q OR esin <br />

csc<br />

q h<br />

cos 0203<br />

<br />

0103<br />

2R<br />

1 R csc <br />

cos<br />

p q 1Recos <br />

csc<br />

p h<br />

cos X 0203<br />

<br />

0003<br />

2R<br />

O R cot <br />

cot<br />

p q 2Recot <br />

cos csc<br />

p q h<br />

Where e is <strong>the</strong> semi edge length <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> platonic polyhedron<br />

h is <strong>the</strong> number <strong>of</strong> lengths into which a great circle is divided by an edge<br />

q is <strong>the</strong> number <strong>of</strong> incident edges at a vertex<br />

p is <strong>the</strong> number <strong>of</strong> edges around a face<br />

They naturally give exactly <strong>the</strong> same numerical results on those we have established.<br />

For example, for <strong>the</strong> tetrahedron, we have<br />

p=3, q=3<br />

14 Kappraff. Op. Cit. p. 287<br />

fig. 29

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