Object Details
teacher
Wheeler, Albert Harry
maker
Daily, L. Mae
Description
A stellation of a regular polyhedron is a polyhedron with faces formed by extending the sides of the faces of the regular polyhedron. For example, if one extends the sides of a regular pentagon, one can obtain a five-pointed star or pentagram. Considering the union of the twelve pentagrams formed from the twelve pentagonal faces of a regular dodecahedron, one obtains this surface, known as a great stellated dodecahedron. It also could be created by gluing appropriate triangular pyramids to the faces of a regular icosahedron – there are a total of sixty triangular faces.
The great stellated dodecahedron was published by Wenzel Jamnitzer in 1568. It was rediscovered by Johannes Kepler and published in his work Harmonice Mundi in 1619. The French mathematician Louis Poinsot rediscovered it in 1809, and the surface and three related stellations are known as a Kepler-Poinsot solids.
This tan paper model of a great stellated dodecahedron is marked: L. MAE DAILY '26 (/) Apr. 24, '25
Compare MA.304723.084, MA.304723.085, 1979.0102.016, and 1979.0102.253.
Lena Mae Daily (1904-1973) was an undergraduate at Brown University's Women's College who took a course from Wheeler in the spring of 1925. She sent him a letter in July of that year showing several models she had made (see 1979.3009.110) Daily would go on to get an M.A. in mathematics at Brown in 1932, and to teach mathematics in the Warwick, Rhode Island, school system from 1926 until her marriage to Allie C. Aldrich in 1942. For models by Daily, see 1979.0102.260, MA.304723.493, and probably MA.304723.676.
References:
Brown Alumni Monthly, vol. 74, #4, January, 1974, p. 51.
Wenzel Jamnitzer, Perspectiva Corporum Regularium, Nuremberg, 1568.
Magnus J. Wenninger, Polyhedron Models, Cambridge: The University Press, 1971, p. 40.
Location
Currently not on view
Credit Line
Gift of Helen M. Wheeler
date made
1925 04 24
ID Number
MA.304723.493
accession number
304723
catalog number
304723.493
Object Name
Geometric Model
Physical Description
tan (overall color)
cut and folded (overall production method/technique)
Measurements
average spatial: 13.6 cm x 16.5 cm x 18 cm; 5 11/32 in x 6 1/2 in x 7 3/32 in
place made
United States: Rhode Island, Providence
See more items in
Medicine and Science: Mathematics
Women Teaching Math
Science & Mathematics
Data Source
National Museum of American History
Subject
Mathematics
Women's History
Link to Original Record
Record ID
nmah_1071248