A polyhedron (3-polytope) is called regular if all its facets are congruent regular polygons and all the angles at the vertices are equal. Supply the details in the following proof that there are only five regular polyhedra.

a. Suppose that a regular polyhedron has r facets, each of which is a k-sided regular polygon, and that s edges meet at each vertex. Letting v and e denote the numbers of vertices and edges in the polyhedron, explain why kr = 2e and sv = 2e.

b. Use Euler’s formula to show that

c. Find all the integral solutions of the equation in part (b) that satisfy the geometric constraints of the problem. (How small can k and s be?)

Transcribed Image Text:

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