SCIENTIFIC PROGRAMS AND ACTIVITIES

The Fields Institute is pleased to announce the dedication of a geometric polytope statue which has been donated to the Institute in appreciation of Professor H.S.M. (Donald) Coxeter's lifelong contributions to geometry on the occasion of his 95th birthday.

The Sculpture to be dedicated on February 15th is a 3-dimensional projection of the regular four-dimensional solid whose faces consist of 120 regular dodecahedrons. When the projection is taken from the centre, it results in the statue. The surface of this 5 foot diameter ball resembles a soccer ball, with 30 hexagons (split into four pentagons arising from 30 dodecahedrons which are projected onto 2-dimensional figures) and 12 pentagons, which are the faces of 12 dodeca-hedrons in the outer shell of the figure. These dodecahedrons actually have 6 faces on the surface (including one pentagons from each of the 5 hexagons surrounding each pentagon on the surface). Also on this outer layer are another 20 dodecahedrons which have three pentagonal faces on the surface (one in each of three adjacent hexagons). In the centre, there are another 12 dodeca-hedrons surrounding a central dodecahedron. This actually accounts for the remaining 90 dodecahedrons of the 4-dimensional figure which are not on the surface, because they are projected two to one into three space.

Talks will be given by John H. Conway, and Marc Pelletier, to be followed by a reception.

Schedule

"I like beautiful things - they're there already; man doesn't have to create it... nature is unbelievably subtle and clever…I enjoy the beauty of nature - and math is natural."
John Conway as quoted in an excerpt from Impressions of Conway, The Sciences, 1994

4:30 PM
Marc Pelletier
the artist will give a talk about the artist who inspired his work
Paul Donchian, Modeler of higher dimensions

Reception to follow

For further information please contact Program Co-ordinator at gensci(PUT_AT_SIGN_HERE)fields.utoronto.ca

Professor H.S.M. Coxeter

John H. Conway