Geometry Party: Polyhedral Marathon
If you’ve played Eyewire long enough, you may have realized that the surfaces of our Eyewire neurons are not actually smooth, as real neurons would be, but instead made up of many polygonal faces! Indeed, each of our neurons is a large polyhedron.
To celebrate all of our polyhedral neurons, we’re bringing you the Polyhedral Marathon! Let’s create a new and interesting polyhedron for all the world to see! But before we do, let’s get to know some more polyhedra, which come in many fun shapes and have some especially zany names!
- Dodecahedron – Let’s start off pretty simple, but still fun! This is the pleasing-to-say name for any polyhedron with 12 sides. It can also be called a duodecahedron.
- Tetrahemihexahedron – say that 5 times fast! This uniform star polyhedron (a self-intersecting uniform polyhedron) has 7 faces (4 triangles and 3 squares), 12 edges, and 6 vertices. It is the only non-prismatic uniform polyhedron with an odd number of faces! It can also be called a hemicuboctahedron.
- Rhombhectotriadiohedron – These polyhedrons keep getting crazier! This solid polyhedron is composed of 132 rhombic faces. There area two types of rhombhectotriadiohedrons, both have the same number of elements and symmetry, but they have different arrangements of rhombic faces. They are also zonohedrons – convex polyhedrons where every face is centrally symmetric, and where the polyhedron itself is also centrally symmetric. These are also called rhombic hectotriadiohedrons or rhombic 132-hedrons.
- Prism – Okay back to a more common polyhedron. A prism is any polyhedron a base, and a translated copy of that base, joined together with a series of of parallelograms which make up its sides. The word “prism” comes from the Greek πρίσμα, meaning “something sawed.”
- Tetrahedron – The simplest polyhedron of all! Also known as the triangular pyramid, this polyhedron has four triangular faces, six straight edges, and four vertices. The tetrahedron is the only ordinary convex polyhedron with fewer than 5 faces.
What’s your favorite polyhedron? You can tell us in chat during the marathon, which begins at 10:00 AM ET on 8/25, and runs for 24 hours! Each cell we complete grants all players a sweet bonus! Check your in-game notifications for cell renaming and bonus info.
Swag: The top player (defined by number of points earned during the marathon time period) will win their choice of tote bag or t-shirt! Also, among the top 25% of players, 2 players will each be raffled their choice of face mask, notebook or mug, and 3 more players will be raffled a magnet.
Artwork by Elena Daly