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Geometric Shapes, Maps, & the EarthStar Globe ™

Regular Polygons, Platonic Solids, and Archimedean Solids
© 2015 Daniel Evan Shaw

Contents
Part 1:
The Five Simplest Shapes, the Platonic Solids
Tetrahedron, Cube, (Pyramid), Octahedron, Icosahedron, Dodecahedron

Part 2:
Beyond Platonic Shapes, the Archimedean Shapes

Part 3:
Geometry of the Earth, Geometric Mapping, & the EarthStar Globe

Part 4:
10 Patterns to Assemble
Star Tetrahedron, Rhombic Dodecahedron, Hexakis Icosahedron, Etruscan Dodecahedron, Great
Dodecahedron

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This book includes patterns for 11 shapes to assemble:

5 Platonic Solids:
Cube, Tetrahedron, Octahedron, Icosahedron & Dodecahedron

& 6 other shapes:

• Pyramid
• Rhombic Dodecahedron
• Hexakis Icosahedron
• Etruscan Dodecahedron
• Star Tetrahedron
• Great Dodecahedron
Geometry: Literally, Earth-measuring
Maps are an especially useful and beautiful application of geometry. The Earth can be represented as
a spherical globe, and also mapped on to the various geometric shapes. This activity introduces
some concepts important to understanding and using maps. Assembling the shapes is a fun way for
you to learn about geometric shapes. The Earth seems to exhibit a natural geometry, as shown by
the remarkable EarthStar Globe.

What You Will Need

You’ll need scissors and some tape. Transparent (“Scotch” ™) tape works well, but since you can
tape the insides of the shapes, you can use other kinds of tape instead. Putting the shapes together
may take about an hour.

Optional
• You may want to decorate your shapes with colored pens and such before you assemble
them, and after they are assembled you may want to string them together and hang them as a
mobile from the ceiling or in a window.

• A whole orange and a permanent marker are needed for an optional activity.

Note to Advanced Geometry Students:

If you already know that the Icosahedron is the dual of the Dodecahedron, then you can skim the
first part.

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Part 1:
The Five Simplest Shapes, the Platonic Solids

These five 3-dimensional shapes with equal sides and equal angles we call Platonic solids, after Plato,
who studied in Egypt, and taught in Greece around 400 B.C., when Greece was a major center of
world power and culture.

The Circle and Sphere

We begin with a circle, and a sphere.

This is a circle. All points on the circle (the circumference) are the same distance from the center.
This distance is r, the radius.

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This tool, the compass, is used to draw a circle.

On a sphere, all points are the same distance from the center. The sphere is not one of the five
Platonic Solids.

The 5 Simplest Geometric Solids

A Special Type of Triangle: Equilateral

The sides of this triangle are of equal length, and the angles are equal. It’s important to know the
name of this triangle, the equilateral triangle. The interior angles of any triangle always add up to 180
degrees. In the case of an equilateral triangle, all three angles are 60 degrees. Shapes like this triangle
with equal length sides and equal angles are also called regular polygons. The root word poly means
many.

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This shape, the tetrahedron, is made of four identical equilateral triangles. Tetra means four. Objects
like these with many sides are called polyhedrons, or polyhedra.

This is the ‘net’ of the tetrahedron. If you cut along the outer edge of the four triangles, then fold
the inside lines, the net forms a tetrahedron.

Equilateral shapes are the basic building blocks of the entire universe, from molecules and crystals,
to plants and planets.

Squares have 4 equal sides and four equal (90 degree) angles. A cube is made of 6 squares.

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Ordinary table salt, sodium chloride, is a cube.

This is a diagram of the cubic structure of salt.

This is one way to flatten a cube into a net.

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Octahedron

The Pyramid: Half of an octahedron

Put four triangles around a square, and you have a square-based pyramid. The highest point is called
the apex. The pyramid is not a Platonic, or regular, solid, since the base is square.

This is the net of the pyramid.

Put the bases of two pyramids together, and you have the octahedron, with 8 identical sides.

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This is a net of the octahedron.

The cube and the octahedron are dual platonic solids, meaning the each point of the octahedron falls
at the center of a face of the cube, and vice-versa.

• cube: 6 faces and 8 points

• octahedron: 8 faces and 6 points

Pentagons and the Dodecahedron

A shape with 5 equal sides is a pentagon.

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12 pentagons form a dodecahedron.

Icosahedron

20 triangles form an icosahedron.

These dice show the number of sides on 4 of the Platonic Solids. Playing math games and other
games with these dice is a great way to learn the shapes. Which Solid is missing?

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Part 2: Beyond Platonic Shapes, the Archimedean Shapes

There are many beautiful variations of regular polyhedra.

The icosahedron and the dodecahedron are perfectly complementary.

• icosahedron: 20 faces and 12 points

• dodecahedron: 12 faces and 20 points

There are a number of ways to combine these two complementary shapes.

Wooden shapes by John Swinnerton.

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These polyhedra composed of two or more regular polygons are named Archimedean solids after
Archimedes. (pronounced ark-i-me-deez). Archimedes of Syracuse in about 200 B.C. was one of the
leading scientists of his era.

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Part 3:
Geometry of the Earth, Geometric Mapping, & the EarthStar Globe

The Earth is not a perfect sphere; the distance around the Equator is greater than the distance
around the North and South poles. This flattening of the Earth occurs because of the Earth’s
rotation, and the moon’s gravity and tides.

This is a photograph of the Earth. A photo is not a map. This photograph of Earth shows half the
Earth, and the other half is not visible.

The Problems with Maps

Maps use design elements to present selected information. To present that information effectively,
maps necessarily leave out a lot of non-essential information.

It is impossible to accurately represent the nearly spherical Earth on a flat map. Try it yourself. Draw
a globe onto an orange; it need not be accurate, but include the North and South poles and the
Equator. Then peel the orange and lay it flat on a table. The orange peel splits up and distances and
directions are distorted.

Mapmakers have found many ways to depict the Earth on a flat map, and each method, called a
projection, has advantages and disadvantages. The science of making maps is called cartography.

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On some maps, such as the Mercator map above, accurate representation of distances is sacrificed
for accurate directions.

When accuracy is important, mapmakers usually choose a projection designed to minimize distortion
of the area or feature(s) they are trying to show.

This Robinson projection map depicts the Equator and Africa quite accurately, but to do so the
North and South poles have been stretched out.

In 1946 the US Patent Office issued the first cartographic patent to Buckminster “Bucky” Fuller.

Fuller is best known for his geodesic domes, as seen on this commemorative postage stamp.

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Fuller’s projection of the Earth onto a geometric map evenly distributes any distortions of the
continents, ‘hiding’ them in the oceans. Fuller used an icosahedron, and called it the Dymaxion map.
When displayed flat, it shows the continents very neatly.

This Dymaxion map shows world population, and temperature.

The Great Pyramid: World’s first geometric map

photo by Nina Aldin Thune

The apex of the pyramid represents the North Pole, and the perimeter line around the base
represents the Equator. The perimeter of the Great Pyramid in Egypt is an extremely accurate
fraction of the Earth’s Equator, making it the first “geometric map”.

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The EarthStar Globe

© 1984 Bethe A. Hagens and Bil Becker

The EarthStar Globe is a combination of the icosahedron and the dodecahedron.

The EarthStar globe is made from 30 diamond-shaped pieces.

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Each diamond is made of four triangles arranged symmetrically. Distances on the EarthStar Globe
are easy to measure.
A : 1400 miles
B : 2200 miles
C : 2600 miles

The Earth itself seems to follow the same geometric patterns as the EarthStar Globe!
Significant geologic features occur at nearly all of the 62 EarthStar points.

The geometric pattern of the Earth was known to Plato, who wrote that "the earth viewed from
above, resembles a ball sewn together from twelve pieces of skin” (the dodecahedron).

1 On the Egyptian continental shelf, in the Mediterranean Sea, at approximately the midpoint between
the two outlets of the Nile at Masabb Rashid and Masabb Dumyat
2 On the Sozh River east of Gomel, at the boundary junction of three Soviet republics - Ukraine,
Bellorussia, and Russia
3 In the marshy lowlands just west of Tobolsk
4 In the lowlands north of the southern tip of lake Baikal, at the edge of highlands
5 In the highlands along the coast of the Sea of Okhotsk
6 Slightly east of Attu at the western tip of the Aleutian Islands
7 Edge of continental shelf in the Gulf of Alaska

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8 Buffalo, Alberta, at the edge of highlands in lowlands

9 Just east of Port Harrison on Hudson's Bay
10 Gibbs Fracture Zone
11 Loch More on the west coast of Scotland
12 On the edge of the Kirthar Range bordering the Indus River Valley, directly north of Karachi
13 At the east edge of the Himalayas in Szechuan Province, just west of the Jiuding Shan summit
14 At the intersection of Kydshu Palau Ridge, the West Mariana Ridge, and the Iwo Jima Ridge
15 At the intersection of Hess Plateau, the Hawaiian Ridge, and the Emperor Seamounts
16 North East of Hawaii, midway between the Murau Fracture Zone and the Molokai Fracture Zone
17 Cerro Cubabi, a highpoint just south of the US/Mexico border near Sonoita and lava fields
18 Edge of continental shelf near Great Abaco Island in the Bahamas
19 Atlantis Fracture Zone
20 In El Eglab, a highland peninsula at the edge of the Sahara Desert sand dunes
21 Sudan Highlands, at the edge of White Nile marsh fields
22 Somali Abyssal Plain
23 Vema Trench (in the Indian Ozean) at the intersection of the Mascarene Ridge, the Carlsberg Ridge
and Maldive Ridge into the Mid-Indian Ridge
24 Ceylon Abyssal Plain
25 Kompong Som, a natural bay on the southern coast of Cambodia southwest of Phnom Penh
26 At the midpoint of Teluk, Tomini, a bay in the northern area of Sulawesi
27 Midpoint of the mouth of the Gulf of Carpentaria
28 Center of Solomon Plateau
29 Midpoint of abyssal plain between Marshall Islands, Mid Pacific Mountains and the Magellan Plateau
30 Nova Canton Trough
31 Society Islands
32 Galapagos Fracture Zone
33 East end of the Clipperton Fracture Zone
34 Junction of the Cocos Ridge and the Carnegie Ridge, just west of the Galapgos Islands
35 Lake Punrrun in Peruvian coastal highlands
36 State of Amazonas, at tip of minor watershed highlands
37 Vema Fracture Zone
38 Romanche Fracture Zone
39 Edge of Mid-Atlantic Ridge in Angola Basin just southeast of Ascension Fracture Zone
40 Gabon highlands, at the intersection of three borders
41 L'uyengo on the Usutu River in Swaziland
42 Intersection of the Mid-Indian Ridge with the Southwest Indian Ridge
43 Tip of the Wallabi Plateau
44 In a lowland area just east of St. Mary Peak (highest point in the area) and north east of Rio de
Janeiro
45 At the edge of the Hebrides Trench, just southwest of the Fiji Islands
46 Undifferentiated South Pacific Ocean
47 Easter Island Fracture Zone
48 Nazca Plate
49 In deep ocean, at edge of continental shelf, southeast of Rio de Janeiro
50 Walvis Ridge

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51 Enderby Abyssal Plain

52 Kerguelen Plateau
53 Ocean floor, midway between Kerguelen Abyssal Plain and Wilkes Abyssal Plain
54 Kangaroo Fracture Zone
55 Edge of Scott Fracture Zone
56 Udintsev Fracture Zone
57 Eltanin Fracture Zone
58 South American tip, at the edge of the Haeckel Deep
59 South Sandwich Fracture Zone
60 Boivet Fracture Zone
61 North Pole
62 South Pole

Look at the outlines of the continents. Notice how the South America coastline seems to match the
shape.

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Mid-ocean ridges, seismic (earthquake) zones, and volcanoes are marked in red; notice how often
they match up with the geometry! Everything in creation is geometric. It seems that the Earth itself
displays the geometry of the icosahedron and dodecahedron.

Numerous man-made monuments have been built at geometric points on the Earth.
The EarthStar globe shows the geometric relationship between these places.

1. Giza, the Great Pyramid

3. Tyumen oil field, USSR
11. Northern British Isles, Maes Howe, Ring of Brodgar, Callanish
12. Mohenjo Daro-Rama Empire culture
13. Pyramids in Xian, China, the largest in the world
14. Southern Japan Dragon's Triangle, great seismic activity
16. Hamakulia, nearby lies Hawaii, scene of high volcanic and earthquake activity
17. The sophisticated canal civilization of Cibola
18. Bimini, the site of huge man-made walls underwater, discovered in 1969, the date that Edgar
Cayce had predicted that evidence of Atlantis would be discovered
20. Algerian megalithic ruin
21. Megaliths at Axum, the Coptic Christian center in Ethiopia
25. Bangkok and Angkor Wat
26. Sarawak, Borneo, site of ancient megalithic structures
28. Pohnpei Island, Micronesia, site of the megalithic city of Nan Madol
35. Lima, Peru, boundary of the Nazca Plate, Pisco, the Candlestick of the Andes & the Nazca Lines
40. Gabon, West Africa, natural atomic reactor in operation about 1.7 million years ago
41. Zimbabwe: ancient mines and structures
44. The Maralinga Atomic Test Site, which also has megalithic ruins
47. Easter Island and its megaliths

The EarthStar globe is available exclusively from VortexMaps.com

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Part 4
10 Patterns to Assemble

Begin by cutting out the shape and folding the interior lines. Then tape the edges together.

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Rhombic dodecahedron
This shape, with 12 diamond-shaped sides, is called a rhombic dodecahedron.

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Etruscan Dodecahedron
This ceramic dodecahedron dates from Neolithic times. These markings, possibly from the Etruscan
civilization, have never been deciphered. Perhaps the shape was used for some kind of game or
perhaps for divination.

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Star Tetrahedron pattern courtesy Bruce Rawles, GeometryCode.com

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Much more information about sacred geometry and the EarthStar globe can be found at:
VortexMaps.com

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