Constructing a Sphere out of PaperDate: 02/08/2003 at 15:37:35 From: Camille Subject: Flattening a sphere (constructing a sphere out of paper) Hi, I'm hoping you might be able to help me. I'm working on a school project and can't seem to find the answer anywhere. The assignment is to construct a 3D 9"-diameter sphere out of paper. Isn't there some standard format or template for figuring this out? Thank you. Date: 02/08/2003 at 18:07:53 From: Doctor Jodi Subject: Re: Flattening a sphere (constructing a sphere out of paper) Hi Camille, What a challenging project! You can find information about how spheres are made from cubical chunks: How to make a sphere page http://www.maxpages.com/thundereggs/How_to_make_Spheres And a friend of mine has some pictures and an explanation of why you can't make a sphere out of paper. Basically, a sphere is REALLY curved (this file is in PDF format): http://193.75.136.15/~dhuylebrouck/Matomium/Goodman_Strauss2.pdf You can also see a discussion of a math teacher's approach at Making Hemispheres out of Paper http://mathforum.org/library/drmath/view/55168.html Basically, this math teacher decided to make a polyhedron with a number of sides. A polyhedron is a 3D shape made of polygons. The cube and pyramid are the most common polyhedra, but there are lots of others. You can see the next two links for pictures and info about constructing polyhedra. Virtual Polyhedra - George W. Hart http://www.georgehart.com/virtual-polyhedra/vp.html Stella: Polyhedron Navigator - Robert Webb http://www.software3d.com/Stella.html Hope this helps! Please let us know how the constructing goes. Write back if you think we could be of more help. - Doctor Jodi, The Math Forum http://mathforum.org/dr.math/ |
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