Geometric Models – Surfaces of Degree Two, in Paper - Wheeler

Worcester, Massachusetts, high school teacher A. Harry Wheeler made—and encouraged his students to make—a wide range of geometric models. A few of these were collapsible paper models of surfaces of degree two. In 1914, he applied for a patent for such a model of a sphere, receiving in in 1916. In late 1915 and early 1916, he made models of several related surfaces. Wheeler was particularly interested in models that could be assembled from like pieces—he rarely used discs of varying size as Henrici and Brill had, and was not interested in flexible surfaces. Wheeler apparently did not attempt models of the hyperboloid of two sheets (#4 in the Carton series) or elliptic paraboloid (#5 in the Carton series). Wheeler made these paper models at a time when the outbreak of warfare in Europe hampered the import of Schilling models. However, he apparently did not profit from his patent. He and his students did occasionally make other examples of these surfaces over the next few years—only the paper ones are shown here, arranged in the same order as Brill’s Carton series and then, to the extent this is known, chronologically.