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Catalog Data

Physical Description:
cloth (overall material)
Measurements:
overall: 4.8 cm x 6.3 cm x 6 cm; 1 7/8 in x 2 15/32 in x 2 3/8 in
Object Name:
geometric model
Place made:
United States: Massachusetts, Worcester
Date made:
ca 1926
Description:
Greek mathematicians knew in ancient times that there are only five polyhedra that have identical faces with equal sides and angles. These five regular surfaces, called the Platonic solids, are the regular tetrahedron (four equilateral triangles as sides), the cube (six square sides), the regular octahedron (eight equilateral triangles as sides), the regular dodecahedron (twelve regular pentagons as sides) and the regular icosahedron (twenty equilateral triangles as sides). This is an early 20th-century model of a regular icosahedron. The sides are covered with sateen and brocade fabrics of various designs and colors, in the style of late 19th-century piece work. Catch stitches are along the edges.
The model is unsigned, but associated with the Worcester, Massachusetts, schoolteacher A. Harry Wheeler. Wheeler taught undergraduates at Wellesley College, a Massachusetts women’s school, from 1926 until 1928. It is possible that one of his students there made the model.
Reference:
Judy Green and Jeanne LaDuke, <I>Pioneering Women in American Mathematics: The Pre-1940 PhD’s</I>, Providence: American Mathematical Society, 2009, p. 21.
Location:
Currently not on view
Subject:
Mathematics  Search this
Women's History  Search this
Credit Line:
Gift of Louise D. Campbell
ID Number:
1979.0102.188
Accession number:
1979.0102
Catalog number:
1979.0102.188
See more items in:
Medicine and Science: Mathematics
Women Teaching Math
Science & Mathematics
Mathematical Association of America Objects
Data Source:
National Museum of American History
GUID:
http://n2t.net/ark:/65665/ng49ca746a7-5d76-704b-e053-15f76fa0b4fa
EDAN-URL:
edanmdm:nmah_904930