Each of these three white plaster models has eight triangles and four parallelograms as top faces and an irregular octahedron for the bottom face. Various line segments are indicated.
This is one of a series of models designed by A. Schoenflies in Göttingen to illustrate the regular partition of space. Schoenflies designed “stones" which could be arranged into larger blocks (sometimes with congruent stones and sometimes using stones that were mirror images of one another). The series was first published by Brill in 1891. The block of model 1985.0112.160 appears to be made up of stones of the shape 1985.0112.175.
This example of the model was exhibited at the Columbian Exposition, a World’s Fair held in Chicago in 1893.
References:
L. Brill, Catalog mathematischer Modelle. . ., Darmstadt: L. Brill, 1892, pp. 46-47, 90-91.
A Schoenflies, “Uber Reguläre Gebietstheilungen des Raumes,” Nachrichten von der Königl. Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften, #9, June 27, 1888, pp. 223-237.
Göttingen Collection of Mathematical Models, presently online at http://modellsammlung.uni-goettingen.de/, accessed September 10, 2019.
Our collection database is a work in progress. We may update this record based on further research and review. Learn more about our approach to sharing our collection online.
If you would like to know how you can use content on this page, see the Smithsonian's Terms of Use. If you need to request an image for publication or other use, please visit Rights and Reproductions.