Jan de Koning
During the first part of my career I worked, successively, as a
carpenter, a woodworker and a furniture designer.
It was after my 45th birthday that I became fascinated by the Platonic
Solids and started wondering how they could be materialized. Nowadays
I design and make mathematical objects, puzzles and building boxes. I
prefer wood but I also work with other materials, like acrylic and
paper.
In his “Timaeus” Plato considers the triangle as the origin of
everything. I divided the five Platonic Solids by means of the
perpendiculars of their faces, and connected those lines with the
center points of the solids. In this way 360 (!) irregular
tetrahedra are materialized.
The dissections of folded paper I put in clear acrylic boxes --
the Platonics -- with identical circumspheres. Thus:
– the tetrahedron consists of 24 irregular tetrahedrons: twelve
right- and twelve lefthanded ones;
– the hextahedron, as well as the octahedron, consists of 48
irregular tetrahedrons: 24 right- and 24 lefthanded
ones;
– the dodecahedron and the icosahedron each consist of 60 right-
and 60 lefthanded irregular tetrahedrons.