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Posted by robinhouston 6/25/2025

A new pyramid-like shape always lands the same side up(www.quantamagazine.org)
656 points | 158 commentspage 4
MikeBenemorhbc 6/25/2025|
[flagged]
Y_Y 6/25/2025||
That's not a Platonic solid. Come on, like.
lynnharry 6/26/2025|
Yeah. I tried to google what's Platonic solid and each face of a platonic solid has to be identical.
peeters 6/26/2025||
It's a meaningless distinction. A solid is defined by a 3D shape enclosed by a surface. It doesn't require uniform density. Just imagine that the sides of this surface are infinitesimally thin so as to be invisible and porous to air, and you've filled the definition. Don't like this answer, then just imagine the same thing but with an actual thin shell like mylar. It makes no difference.
peeters 6/26/2025||
Oops disregard this, by "has to be identical" I thought you were objecting to the non uniformity of the surface, not the incongruity of the sides' shapes, so that's where my comment was coming from.

The incongruity of the sides certainly makes it not a Platonic Solid, though the article doesn't actually assert that it is. It just uses some terrible phrasing that's bound to mislead. Their words with my clarification for how it could be parsed in a factually accurate way: "A tetrahedron is the simplest Platonic solid (when it's a regular tetrahedron). Mathematicians have now made one (a tetrahedron, not a Platonic solid)...".

It's a dumb phrasing, it's like saying "Tesla makes the world's fastest accelerating sports car. I bought one" and then revealing that the "one" refers to a Tesla Model 3, not the fastest accelerating sports car.

Trowter 6/25/2025||
babe wake up a new shape dropped
xeonmc 6/25/2025||
Reminded me of Gömböc[0]
DerekL 6/25/2025|
Mentioned in the article.
pizzathyme 6/25/2025||
Couldn't you achieve this same result with a ball that has one weighted flat side?

And then if it needs to be more polygonal, just reduce the vertices?

zuminator 6/25/2025||
The article acknowledges that roly-poly toys have always worked, but in this case they were looking for polyhedra with entirely flat surfaces.
Etheryte 6/25/2025||
A ball that has one flat side can land on two sides: the round side and the flat side. You can easily verify this by cutting an apple in half and putting one half flat side down and the other flat side up.
Etheryte 6/26/2025||
Note: the GP comment didn't include the word "weighted" when I made my comment, their edit makes this comment look like nonsense.
sly010 6/26/2025|
Math has a PR problem. The weight being non-uniform makes this a little unsurprising to a non-mathematician, it's a bit like a wire "sphere" with a weight attached on one side, but a low poly version. Giving it a "skin" would make this look more impressive.
seniortaco 6/26/2025|
It appears unsurprising because it is unsurprising.