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Johnson solid

A Johnson solid is a convex polyhedron each face of which is a regular polygon which is not vertex-uniform. These polyhedra are what are left once you take away the Platonic solids, Archimedean solids, prisms and antiprisms. There is no requirement that each face must be the same polygon. An example of a Johnson solid that is neither a platonic solid nor an archimedean solid is a square based pyramid; it has one square face and four triangular faces.

There are some requirements, nonetheless. To have vertices, there must be at least three of the faces meeting at a point, and the total of their angles must be less than 360 degrees; i.e the corners of the face must be less than 120 degrees. Regular polygons must have all sides of equal length, and all angles of equal degrees, so parallelograms or trapezoids may not be used. Just as there are an infinite number of natural numbers, there are an infinite number of regular polygons. Every one of them may be used as the base of a pyramid, but the triangles used to make the pyramid are not regular.

In 1966, Norman Johnson published a list which included all 92 solids, and gave them their names. He did not prove that there were only 92, but he did conjecture that there were no others. Zalgaller in 1969 proved that Johnson's list was complete.

The names and Johnson numbers for the solids are:

  1. square pyramid
  2. pentagonal pyramid
  3. triangular cupola
  4. square cupola
  5. pentagonal cupola
  6. pentagonal rotunda
  7. elongated triangular pyramid
  8. elongated square pyramid
  9. elongated pentagonal pyramid
  10. gyroelongated square pyramid
  11. gyroelongated pentagonal pyramid
  12. triangular dipyramid
  13. pentagonal dipyramid
  14. elongated triangular dipyramid
  15. elongated square dipyramid
  16. elongated pentagonal dipyramid
  17. gyroelongated square dipyramid
  18. elongated triangular cupola
  19. elongated square cupola
  20. elongated pentagonal cupola
  21. elongated pentagonal rotunda
  22. gyroelongated triangular cupola
  23. gyroelongated square cupola
  24. gyroelongated pentagonal cupola
  25. gyroelongated pentagonal rotunda
  26. gyrobifastigium
  27. triangular orthobicupola
  28. square orthobicupola
  29. square gyrobicupola
  30. pentagonal orthobicupola
  31. pentagonal gyrobicupola
  32. pentagonal orthocupolarontunda
  33. pentagonal gyrocupolarotunda
  34. pentagonal orthobirotunda
  35. elongated triangular orthobicupola
  36. elongated triangular gyrobicupola
  37. elongated square gyrobicupola
  38. elongated pentagonal orthobicupola
  39. elongated pentagonal gyrobicupola
  40. elongated pentagonal orthocupolarotunda
  41. elongated pentagonal gyrocupolarotunda
  42. elongated pentagonal orthobirotunda
  43. elongated pentagonal gyrobirotunda
  44. gyroelongated triangular bicupola
  45. gyroelongated square bicupola
  46. gyroelongated pentagonal bicupola
  47. gyroelongated pentagonal cupolarotunda
  48. gyroelongated pentagonal birotunda
  49. augmented triangular prism
  50. biaugmented triangular prism
  51. triaugmented triangular prism
  52. augmented pentagonal prism
  53. biaugmented pentagonal prism
  54. augmented hexagonal prism
  55. parabiaugmented hexagonal prism
  56. metabiaugmented hexagonal prism
  57. triaugmented hexagonal prism
  58. augmented dodecahedron
  59. parabiaugmented dodecahedron
  60. metabiaugmented dodecahedron
  61. triaugmented dodecahedron
  62. metabidiminished icosahedron
  63. tridiminished icosahedron
  64. augmented tridiminished icosahedron
  65. augmented truncated tetrahedron
  66. augmented truncated cube
  67. biaugmented truncated cube
  68. augmented truncated dodecahedron
  69. parabiaugmented truncated dodecahedron
  70. metabiaugmented truncated dodecahedron
  71. triaugmented truncated dodecahedron
  72. gyrate rhombicosidodecahedron
  73. parabigyrate rhombicosidodecahedron
  74. metabigyrate rhombicosidodecahedron
  75. trigyrate rhombicosidodecahedron
  76. diminished rhombicosidodecahedron
  77. paragyrate diminished rhombicosidodecahedron
  78. metagyrate diminished rhombicosidodecahedron
  79. bigyrate diminished rhombicosidodecahedron
  80. parabidiminished rhombicosidodecahedron
  81. metabidiminished rhombicosidodecahedron
  82. gyrate bidiminished rhombicosidodecahedron
  83. tridiminished rhombicosidodecahedron
  84. snub disphenoid
  85. snub square antiprism
  86. sphenocorona
  87. augmented sphenocorona
  88. sphenomegacorona
  89. hebesphenomegacorona
  90. disphenocingulum
  91. bilunabirotunda
  92. triangular hebesphenorotunda

The names are more descriptive than they sound. Most of the Johnson solids can be constructed from the first few (pyramids, cupolae, and rotunda), together with the platonic and archimedean solids, prisms, antiprisms.

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