Platonic Solids

A Platonic solid is a polyhedron whose faces are identical regular polygons. The ancient Greeks were able to show that there are exactly five such Platonic solids. This virtual manipulative allows you to display, rotate, and resize Platonic solids. It also allows you to select vertices, edges, and faces, and observe that the number of vertices minus the number of edges plus the number of faces is always equal to 2 (Euler's formula).

Using this virtual manipulative you may:

Rotate the Platonic solid

Click and drag anywhere in the workspace to rotate the solid.

Count the faces, edges or vertices of the Platonic solid

Select a color by clicking one of the color buttons.

Hold the Shift key down on your keyboard and click on a face, an edge or a vertex. Faces will be filled in with the color you selected; edges will be colored white; vertices will be colored black.

Display different Platonic solids

Click the New Shape button.

Clear (uncolor) counted items

Click the Reset Shape button to uncolor all faces, edges, and vertices.

Show the wire frame version of the Platonic solid

Click on (check) the Transparent check box.

Change the size of the Platonic solid

Click and drag the vertical slider to dynamically resize the solid.