Platonic Trio: Circular Axes, Atomic Orbitals, and The Magic Number 5
Designer and Artist: Shiying Dong
Materials and Methods: Worsted weight wool yarn and half-hard copper wire, crocheted with mostly single stitches
Years of Creation: Designed in 2020; Made in 2022
Circular Axes: In this Seifert surface of the Borromean rings the centers of the crocheted "triangles" form a tetrahedron, as do those of the empty "triangles." Together both positive and negative ``triangles" form an octahedron, which is rectified tetrahedron. The whole shape has the symmetry of chiral polyhedral group T.
Atomic Orbitals: In this generalization of the Seifert surface of the Borromean rings, the centers of the crocheted "triangles" form a cube and those of the empty "squares" form an octahedron. Together the positive and negative spaces form a cuboctahedron, which is a rectified octahedron. The whole shape has the symmetry of chiral polyhedral group O. The four-component boundary forms an alternating link that's popular in decorative knotting.
The Magic Number 5: The centers of the crocheted "triangles" of this surface form a dodecahedron and those of the empty "pentagons" form an icosahedron. Together they form an icosidodecahedron, which is a rectified icosahedron. The whole shape has the symmetry of chiral polyhedral group I. The six-component boundary also forms an alternating link that can be seen in decorative knotting.