Rhombic triacontahedron

Let ${\displaystyle \phi }$ be the golden ratio. The 12 points given by ${\displaystyle (0,\pm 1,\pm \phi )}$ and cyclic permutations of these coordinates are the vertices of a regular icosahedron. Its dual regular dodecahedron, whose edges intersect those of the icosahedron at right angles, has as vertices the 8 points ${\displaystyle (\pm 1,\pm 1,\pm 1)}$ together with the 12 points ${\displaystyle (0,\pm \phi ,\pm 1/\phi )}$ and cyclic permutations of these coordinates. All 32 points together are the vertices of a rhombic triacontahedron centered at the origin. The length of its edges is ${\displaystyle {\sqrt {3-\phi }}\approx 1.175\,570\,504\,58}$. Its faces have diagonals with lengths ${\displaystyle 2}$ and ${\displaystyle 2/\phi }$.

If the edge length of a rhombic triacontahedron is a, surface area, volume, the radius of an inscribed sphere (tangent to each of the rhombic triacontahedron's faces) and midradius, which touches the middle of each edge are:[1]

${\displaystyle {\begin{aligned}S&=12{\sqrt {5}}\,a^{2}&&\approx 26.8328a^{2}\\V&=4{\sqrt {5+2{\sqrt {5}}}}\,a^{3}&&\approx 12.3107a^{3}\\r_{\mathrm {i} }&={\frac {\varphi ^{2}}{\sqrt {1+\varphi ^{2}}}}\,a={\sqrt {1+{\frac {2}{\sqrt {5}}}}}\,a&&\approx 1.37638a\\r_{\mathrm {m} }&=\left(1+{\frac {1}{\sqrt {5}}}\right)\,a&&\approx 1.44721a\end{aligned}}}$

where φ is the golden ratio.

The insphere is tangent to the faces at their face centroids. Short diagonals belong only to the edges of the inscribed regular dodecahedron, while long diagonals are included only in edges of the inscribed icosahedron.

The rhombic triacontahedron can be dissected into 20 golden rhombohedra: 10 acute ones and 10 obtuse ones.[2][3]

10	10
Acute form	Obtuse form

The rhombic triacontahedron has four symmetry positions, two centered on vertices, one mid-face, and one mid-edge. Embedded in projection "10" are the "fat" rhombus and "skinny" rhombus which tile together to produce the non-periodic tessellation often referred to as Penrose tiling.

Orthogonal projections

Projective symmetry	[2]	[2]	[6]	[10]
Image
Dual image

Rhombic hexecontahedron

An example of stellations of the rhombic triacontahedron.

The rhombic triacontahedron has 227 fully supported stellations.[4][5] Another stellation of the Rhombic triacontahedron is the compound of five octahedra. The total number of stellations of the rhombic triacontahedron is 358,833,097.

Family of uniform icosahedral polyhedra
Symmetry: [5,3], (*532)							[5,3]+, (532)
{5,3}	t{5,3}	r{5,3}	t{3,5}	{3,5}	rr{5,3}	tr{5,3}	sr{5,3}
Duals to uniform polyhedra
V5.5.5	V3.10.10	V3.5.3.5	V5.6.6	V3.3.3.3.3	V3.4.5.4	V4.6.10	V3.3.3.3.5

This polyhedron is a part of a sequence of rhombic polyhedra and tilings with [n,3] Coxeter group symmetry. The cube can be seen as a rhombic hexahedron where the rhombi are also rectangles.

Symmetry mutations of dual quasiregular tilings: V(3.n)2
*n32	Spherical			Euclidean	Hyperbolic
	*332	*432	*532	*632	*732	*832...	*∞32
Tiling
Conf.	V(3.3)2	V(3.4)2	V(3.5)2	V(3.6)2	V(3.7)2	V(3.8)2	V(3.∞)2

• 
  Spherical rhombic triacontahedron
• 
  A rhombic triacontahedron with an inscribed tetrahedron (red) and cube (yellow).
  (Click here for rotating model)
• 
  A rhombic triacontahedron with an inscribed dodecahedron (blue) and icosahedron (purple).
  (Click here for rotating model)
• 
  Fully truncated rhombic triacontahedron

6-cube

The rhombic triacontahedron forms a 32 vertex convex hull of one projection of a 6-cube to three dimensions.

The 3D basis vectors [u,v,w] are: u = (1, φ, 0, -1, φ, 0) v = (φ, 0, 1, φ, 0, -1) w = (0, 1, φ, 0, -1, φ)

Shown with inner edges hidden 20 of 32 interior vertices form a dodecahedron, and the remaining 12 form an icosahedron.

An example of the use of a rhombic triacontahedron in the design of a lamp

Danish designer Holger Strøm used the rhombic triacontahedron as a basis for the design of his buildable lamp IQ-light (IQ for "Interlocking Quadrilaterals").

STL model of a rhombic triacontahedral box made of six panels around a cubic hole – zoom into the model to see the hole from the inside

Woodworker Jane Kostick builds boxes in the shape of a rhombic triacontahedron.[6] The simple construction is based on the less than obvious relationship between the rhombic triacontahedron and the cube.

Roger von Oech's "Ball of Whacks" comes in the shape of a rhombic triacontahedron.

The rhombic triacontahedron is used as the "d30" thirty-sided die, sometimes useful in some roleplaying games or other places.

Christopher Bird, co-author of The Secret Life of Plants wrote an article for New Age Journal in May, 1975, popularizing the dual icosahedron and dodecahedron as "the crystalline structure of the Earth," a model of the "Earth (telluric) energy Grid." The EarthStar Globe by Bill Becker and Bethe A. Hagens purports to show "the natural geometry of the Earth, and the geometric relationship between sacred places such as the Great Pyramid, the Bermuda Triangle, and Easter Island." It is printed as a rhombic triacontahedron, on 30 diamonds, and folds up into a globe.[7]

• Golden rhombus
• Rhombille tiling
• Truncated rhombic triacontahedron

• Williams, Robert (1979). The Geometrical Foundation of Natural Structure: A Source Book of Design. Dover Publications, Inc. ISBN 0-486-23729-X. (Section 3-9)
• Wenninger, Magnus (1983), Dual Models, Cambridge University Press, doi:10.1017/CBO9780511569371, ISBN 978-0-521-54325-5, MR 0730208 (The thirteen semiregular convex polyhedra and their duals, p. 22, Rhombic triacontahedron)
• The Symmetries of Things 2008, John H. Conway, Heidi Burgiel, Chaim Goodman-Strass, ISBN 978-1-56881-220-5 (Chapter 21, Naming the Archimedean and Catalan polyhedra and tilings, p. 285, Rhombic triacontahedron )

• Eric W. Weisstein, Rhombic triacontahedron (Catalan solid) at MathWorld.
• Rhombic Triacontrahedron – Interactive Polyhedron Model
• Virtual Reality Polyhedra – The Encyclopedia of Polyhedra
• Stellations of Rhombic Triacontahedron
• EarthStar globe – Rhombic Triacontahedral map projection
• IQ-light—Danish designer Holger Strøm's lamp
• Make your own
• a wooden construction of a rhombic triacontahedron box – by woodworker Jane Kostick
• 120 Rhombic Triacontahedra, 30+12 Rhombic Triacontahedra, and 12 Rhombic Triacontahedra by Sándor Kabai, The Wolfram Demonstrations Project
• A viper drawn on a rhombic triacontahedron.