Goldberg, Fuller, Caspar, Klug and Coxeter and a general approach to local symmetry-preserving operations

TL;DR

This paper reviews and unifies various methods for constructing symmetric polyhedra, extending Goldberg's approach to include all local symmetry-preserving operations, with implications for chemistry, biology, and mathematics.

Contribution

It generalizes Goldberg's method to a systematic framework that encompasses all local symmetry-preserving operations on polyhedra.

Findings

Unified approach to symmetry-preserving operations.

Clarified differences between Goldberg, Caspar-Klug, and Coxeter methods.

Extended Goldberg's construction to a comprehensive systematic method.

Abstract

Cubic polyhedra with icosahedral symmetry where all faces are pentagons or hexagons have been studied in chemistry and biology as well as mathematics. In chemistry one of these is buckminsterfullerene, a pure carbon cage with maximal symmetry, whereas in biology they describe the structure of spherical viruses. Parameterized operations to construct all such polyhedra were first described by Goldberg in 1937 in a mathematical context and later by Caspar and Klug -- not knowing about Goldberg's work -- in 1962 in a biological context. In the meantime Buckminster Fuller also used subdivided icosahedral structures for the construction of his geodesic domes. In 1971 Coxeter published a survey article that refers to these constructions. Subsequently, the literature often refers to the Goldberg-Coxeter construction. This construction is actually that of Caspar and Klug. Moreover, there are essential differences between this (Caspar/Klug/Coxeter) approach and the approaches of Fuller and of Goldberg. We will sketch the different approaches and generalize Goldberg's approach to a systematic one encompassing all local symmetry-preserving operations on polyhedra.

Full text

**Goldberg, Fuller, Caspar, Klug and Coxeter

and a general approach to

local symmetry-preserving operations **

**Gunnar Brinkmann1, Pieter Goetschalckx1, Stan Schein2 **

1*Applied Mathematics, Computer Science and Statistics

Ghent University Krijgslaan 281-S9

9000 Ghent, Belgium*

2*California Nanosystems Institute and Department of Psychology

University of California

Los Angeles, CA 90095*

Gunnar.Brinkmann@UGent.be, Pieter.Goetschalckx@UGent.be, Stan.Schein@gmail.com.

(Received …)

Abstract

Cubic polyhedra with icosahedral symmetry where all faces are pentagons or hexagons have been studied in chemistry and biology as well as mathematics. In chemistry one of these is buckminsterfullerene, a pure carbon cage with maximal symmetry, whereas in biology they describe the structure of spherical viruses. Parameterized operations to construct all such polyhedra were first described by Goldberg in 1937 in a mathematical context and later by Caspar and Klug – not knowing about Goldberg’s work – in 1962 in a biological context. In the meantime Buckminster Fuller also used subdivided icosahedral structures for the construction of his geodesic domes. In 1971 Coxeter published a survey article that refers to these constructions. Subsequently, the literature often refers to the Goldberg-Coxeter construction. This construction is actually that of Caspar and Klug. Moreover, there are essential differences between this (Caspar/Klug/Coxeter) approach and the approaches of Fuller and of Goldberg. We will sketch the different approaches and generalize Goldberg’s approach to a systematic one encompassing all local symmetry-preserving operations on polyhedra.

Keywords: polyhedra, symmetry preserving, chamber system,

Goldberg-Coxeter operation

Author’s contributions: All authors contributed critically in ideas and writing.

Data accessibility: No data was involved in this research.

Competing interests: None.

Acknowledgements: The authors want to thank Nico Van Cleemput (Ghent University) for helpful discussions.

Funding statement: There was no external funding for this project.

Introduction

In mathematics and chemistry the article by Caspar and Klug [1] is less popular than the ones by Coxeter [2] and Goldberg [3]. A reason might be that the former has a strong biological focus and is vague with regard to mathematical details. Indeed, for details it refers to another paper [4] that is listed as to be submitted in the article but was never completed, as Caspar writes in a later comment [5] on [1].

The most commonly used source for information about the Caspar-Klug construction is the article by Coxeter [2] in which the construction is described in a more formal way – and without referring much to the biological context. In this article Coxeter mentions the works of Caspar and Klug, of Buckminster Fuller [6] and of Goldberg, but when describing the method of covering an icosahedron with identical equilateral triangles cut out of the triangular lattice – the construction often cited as the Goldberg-Coxeter operation (see e.g. [7] or [8]) – he explicitly refers to Caspar and Klug.

The misunderstanding that this operation is identical to the much earlier proposed operation by Goldberg might have been caused by the sentence in [2]: “Independently of Michael Goldberg, Caspar and Klug proposed the following rule for making a suitable pattern.” But, although the 2-parameter description of the operation is the same, the equilateral triangle used by Caspar and Klug is not even an intermediate step in Goldberg’s approach and is not what Goldberg – who in fact works in the duals, the hexagonal lattice and the dodecahedron – glues onto the dodecahedron. The results are the same (or, to be exact, duals of each other), but the methods to obtain these results differ in essential points.

We will now describe the methods of Goldberg [3], of Fuller [6], and of Caspar and Klug [1] in the order in which they were developed. Finally we will show how Goldberg’s approach can be modified to form a general approach to local operations preserving symmetry.

The approach of Goldberg

We will describe the approach of Goldberg in more modern language than the one in his article from 1937. This language allows a more formal description and will make generalization easier. In this article we discuss graphs that are finite or infinite, have a finite degree of the vertices, are embedded in the sphere or the Euclidean plane so that all faces have an interior that is homeomorphic to an open disc, and have a boundary for each face that is a simple cycle. We will refer to a plane graph (or polyhedron if the graph is 3-connected) if a finite graph is embedded in the Euclidean plane or on the sphere. We will refer to a tiling if it is an infinite tiling of the Euclidean plane. (Other tilings will not be discussed in detail in this article.) As shown in Figure 1 for the example of the hexagonal tiling of the Euclidean plane, we can obtain a barycentric subdivision of such a tiling by labeling each vertex with a [math], by inserting one vertex within each edge and labelling it with a $1$, and by placing one vertex in the interior of each face and labelling it with a $2$. Then we connect the vertices with label $2$ to all of the vertices ([math]’s and $1$’s) in the boundary of the face in which it lies in the cyclic order around the boundary. This procedure can also be used when the boundary of each face is not a simple cycle and vertices occur more than once in the walk around the boundary. In this case the result would be a multigraph.

By this method we can obtain a tiling where all faces are triangles with vertices labeled (in clockwise order around the boundary) either $0,1,2$ (we can call them black) or $2,1,0$ (white), and each triangle shares only edges with triangles of another colour. We call such labelled triangles chambers. Let $\Sigma=\langle\sigma_{0},\sigma_{1},\sigma_{2}|\sigma_{0}^{2}=\sigma_{1}^{2}=\sigma_{2}^{2}=1\rangle$ denote the free Coxeter group with generators $\sigma_{0},\sigma_{1},\sigma_{2}$. Now, if we define for $0\leq i\leq 2$ and two chambers $t,t^{\prime}$ such that $t$ and $t^{\prime}$ share an edge but do not share the vertex labelled $i$ that $\sigma_{i}(t)=t^{\prime}$, we have a chamber system. In an abstract way, these chambers can also be defined as elements of the flag space of the polyhedron. The flags are given by triples $(v,e,f)$, so that vertex $v$ is contained in edge $e$ and edge $e$ is contained in face $f$. See [9] and [10] for more detailed descriptions. The chamber system encodes the combinatorial structure of the polyhedron completely, and the symmetry group of the polyhedron induces an operation on the chamber system.

While Caspar and Klug cut out triangular parts that fill complete faces of the triangulation (e.g. of the icosahedron) onto which they are glued, Goldberg proposes to cut out smaller triangles and to fill an $f$-gon with $2f$ copies of small triangles. Although he applies the method only to pentagons, different from the Caspar-Klug method, his method can be applied to faces of any size.

Unfortunately Goldberg’s article [3] has a mistake. The construction only works for achiral icosahedral fullerenes, which have the full icosahedral group of order $120$, and not – as he claims – also for chiral fullerenes with only the rotational subgroup of order $60$. He argues that for fullerenes (or medial polyhedra as he calls them) that are assembled from $12$ congruent patches that are pentagonal in shape we have that “Each pentagonal patch may be divided into ten equivalent (congruent or symmetric) triangular patches.” This statement is true for achiral icosahedral fullerenes but not for pentagonal patches of chiral icosahedral fullerenes. The latter can be divided into five congruent triangular patches or ten triangular patches consisting of two sets of five congruent triangles. The error is surprising because in his article he gives a picture (Figure 3 in [3]) of the triangular patch he claims to be sufficient for the chiral parameters $(5,3)$, and copies of this triangular patch can obviously not be identified along edges to form a tiling.

Goldberg’s method for cutting the patches out of the hexagonal lattice can thus (in a more formal and corrected way) be described as follows: Assume that the regular hexagonal lattice is equipped with a coordinate system so that $(0,0)$ is in the center of a hexagonal face $f$, $(1,0)$ is a vertex $v$ of $f$ and $(0,1)$ is the vertex of $f$ that is obtained by a $60$ degrees rotation of $v$ in counterclockwise direction around the origin. By induction it can be easily proven that a vertex with integer coordinates $(a,b)$ is the center of a face if $a-b\equiv 0(\mbox{mod }3)$ and a vertex otherwise. Or, to be more precise, if $a-b\not\equiv 0(\mbox{mod }3)$ each vertex is either the left or the right vertex of an edge parallel to the vector $(1,0)$. If $a-b\equiv 1(\mbox{mod }3)$, it is the left vertex. If $a-b\equiv 2(\mbox{mod }3)$, it is a right vertex. If $(a,b)$ are not both integer but both multiples of $\frac{1}{2}$, then $(a,b)$ is the center of an edge if $2(a-b)\equiv 0(\mbox{mod }3)$.

For given parameters $l,m\in\mathbb{N}$ with $l\geq m\geq 0$, choose $v_{2}=(0,0)$, $v_{1}=(\frac{l-m}{2},\frac{l+2m}{2})$ and $v_{0}=(l,m)$. The point $v_{1}$ is the midpoint between $v_{0}$ and the image of $v_{0}$ when rotating it by $60$ degrees in counter clockwise direction around the origin $v_{2}$. See Figure 2 for an example. The resulting triangle is always a triangle with a $30$ degree angle at $v_{2}$, a $90$ degree angle at $v_{1}$ and a $60$ degree angle at $v_{0}$. While $v_{2}$ is always the center of a face, $v_{0}$ can be a vertex or the center of a face. For $v_{1}$ we have that $\frac{l-m}{2}-\frac{l+2m}{2}=\frac{-3m}{2}$. Both coordinates of $v_{1}$ are only integer if $l$ and $m$ are both even. In this case $v_{1}$ is the center of a face. Otherwise $2\frac{-3m}{2}=-3m\equiv 0(\mbox{mod }3)$, so in that case $v_{1}$ is the center of an edge.

Although he used different words, Goldberg proposed to glue a copy of the interior of this triangle $v_{0},v_{1},v_{2}$, which we will call a Goldberg triangle, into each chamber of a polyhedron in such a way that the vertices $v_{0},v_{1},v_{2}$ are identified with the corresponding vertices of the chambers. This construction glues each side of a triangle against the same side in the mirror image of a copy of the triangle. If the sides in the hexagonal lattice are part of a mirror axis, the edges nicely match to form a tiling of the sphere because they match in the hexagonal tiling. If they are not, lines do not necessarily match. The side $v_{2},v_{0}$ has direction $(l,m)$ which is part of a mirror axis through the origin for $l≥m$ if and only if $m=0$ or $l=m$. If $m=0$ the side $v_{2},v_{1}$ has direction $(\frac{l}{2},\frac{l}{2})$ and starts at a face center, and the side $v_{1},v_{0}$ has direction $(\frac{l}{2},-\frac{l}{2})$ starting at a face center ($l$ even) or the center of an edge parallel to this direction. If $l=m$, the side $v_{2},v_{1}$ has direction $(0,\frac{3l}{2})$ starting at a face center, and side $v_{0},v_{1}$ has direction $(-l,\frac{l}{2})$ also starting at a face center. In each case, all three sides of the triangle are mirror axes. When applied to a polyhedron or tiling, new faces not containing a corner point of the subdivided chamber are hexagons as in the lattice, and vertices not forming a corner point remain 3-valent. At $v_{1}$ four copies are glued together in the same way as in the hexagonal lattice, so the local situation is exactly like that in the hexagonal lattice. As the dodecahedron is 3-valent, at $v_{0}$ six copies are glued together, just as they are situated in the hexagonal lattice, so this gluing process will give a 3-valent vertex if $v_{0}$ is a vertex and a hexagon if $v_{0}$ is the center of a face. Only at $v_{2}$ can face sizes differ from $6$: In the resulting polyhedron, the vertex $v_{2}$ will be the center of a face of the same size as before, thus a pentagon in the case of decorating the dodecahedron.

If $l\not=m$ and $m>0$, the result of the gluing process can give disconnected graphs or double edges, because the triangles are glued to parts that are different from the parts they are glued to in the hexagonal lattice. For $l\not=m$ and $m>0$, the sides are not mirror axes, so the content of the congruent triangles on the other side of edges is different (Figure 3). To this end, in addition to $v_{0},v_{1}$, and $v_{2}$ another vertex $v^{\prime}_{0}$ with coordinates $(-b,a+b)$ must be used. We mark the triangle $v^{\prime}_{0},v_{2},v_{1}$ black, whereas we mark the triangle $v_{0},v_{1},v_{2}$ white. Gluing copies of the black triangles to all black triangles of the chamber system of the dodecahedron and copies of the white triangles to all white triangles of the chamber system of the dodecahedron produces the desired icosahedral fullerene. The mirror symmetries of the dodecahedron are lost, as the content of black and white triangles cannot be mapped onto each other by a reflection, but all orientation-preserving symmetries remain. The facts that $v_{1}$ is a center of a 2-fold rotation, that $v_{2}$ is a center of a 6-fold rotation, and that $v_{0}$ and $v^{\prime}_{0}$ are centers of 3-fold rotations ensures that the triangles match up. As each $n$-gon contains $n$ black and $n$ white triangles that can be paired, it is not necessary to distinguish between the white and the black triangles, but the larger quadrangle $v_{2},v_{0},v_{1},v^{\prime}_{0}$ (that has in fact a triangular shape due to the angle of $180$ degrees at $v_{1}$), containing a black triangle and a white triangle, can be used to decorate the paired chambers in the polyhedron.

For a more formal way to describe the combinatorial structure of the resulting fullerene or for implementing the operations in a computer program, it is better to switch to chamber systems completely. The symmetry group operates on the chambers of the hexagonal tiling, and the barycentric subdivision can be chosen in a way that complete chambers are contained in the Goldberg triangle. This way the gluing of the Goldberg triangle comes down to subdividing a chamber of the dodecahedron into smaller chambers. In the chiral case the set of chambers of the hexagonal tiling can be chosen in various ways as fundamental domains of the group generated by the rotations required for the sides of the triangles. For a given barycentric subdivision it is possible that when drawing the triangle with straight lines chambers are intersected and only partially contained in the triangle. The set of chambers must be chosen in a way that the boundary is a simple cycle through $v_{0},v_{1},v^{\prime}_{0},v_{2}$, so that the path from $v_{1}$ to $v_{0}$ is the image of the path from $v_{1}$ to $v^{\prime}_{0}$ under a rotation of $180$ degrees around $v_{1}$ and that the path from $v_{2}$ to $v^{\prime}_{0}$ is the image of the path from $v_{2}$ to $v_{0}$ under a rotation of $60$ degrees around $v_{2}$. Figure 4 gives an example for parameters $(5,3)$.

Details on operations not necessarily preserving orientation reversing symmetries will be given in a later article.

The approach of Buckminster Fuller

The first geodesic dome is believed to be the provisional dome of the Zeiss-Planetarium on the roof of the Zeiss factory in Jena around 1924. The structure was designed by Walter Bauersfeld, an optical engineer who worked for Zeiss, and was patented and constructed by the firm of Dykerhoff and Wydmann. It was already based on a subdivided icosahedron in order to get close to a round surface suitable for the projection of the stars.

Fuller reinvented this idea about 20 years later and popularized it in the United States. Nowadays it is mainly his name that is associated with geodesic domes. Refinements of the icosahedron and the cuboctahedron that he called vector equilibrium or Dymaxion (see Figure 5) were also used for the early version of his Dymaxion map – a map of the world, projected onto the surface of an inscribed polyhedron.

As his work preceded that of Caspar and Klug, it is of course interesting to know whether for his refinements of the icosahedral and Dymaxion structures he had already used the methods of Caspar and Klug based on the corresponding Euclidean lattices. In [6](p. 50) Fuller and Marks write as follows:

“The geometric principles underlying the Dymaxion map are the same as those used to develop the basic pattern of Fuller’s domes.”

and

“To produce Fuller’s Dymaxion map, we reverse this process. We start with a sphere, on whose surface a spherical icosahedron has been drawn. Next we subtriangulate the icosahedron’s 20 triangular faces with symmetric, three way, great circle grids of a chosen frequency. Then we transfer this figure’s configuration of points to the faces of an ordinary (non-spherical) icosahedron which has been symmetrically subtriangulated in frequency of modular subdivision corresponding to the frequency of the spherical icosahedron’s subdivisions.”

So Fuller’s construction was less general. He subtriangulated the triangles without referring to the triangular lattice and without the possibility to produce chiral structures where some smaller triangles cross the edges of the original icosahedron.

The approach of Caspar and Klug

Caspar and Klug use the Euclidean triangular lattice equipped with a coordinate system, so that – with the origin in a vertex – the points $(0,1)$ and $(1,0)$ are on vertices neighbouring the origin, and $(0,1)$ can be obtained from $(1,0)$ by a $60$ degrees rotation in counterclockwise direction around the origin. In this lattice the vertices are exactly the points with both coordinates integers (Figure 6). Note that when we use the coordinate system of Goldberg that is defined in the dual hexagonal lattice (Figures 2 and 3), the length of the unit vectors used by Goldberg is shorter by a factor of $\sqrt{3}$ than that of the vectors used by Caspar and Klug.

Caspar and Klug propose to look at the triangle formed by the vertices $v_{1}=(0,0)$, $v_{2}=(a,b)$ and $v_{3}=(-b,a+b)$ for integer values $a\geq b\geq 0$. This triangle has all corners in vertices, and vertices of the triangular lattice are centers of rotational symmetries of the tiling by $60$ degrees. The product of two rotations by $60$ degrees in clockwise order – first around $v_{1}$, then around $v_{2}$ – is a rotation by $120$ degrees around the center of the chosen triangle, proving that this rotation is a symmetry of the triangle, its interior, and the tiling.

These observations show that however we join identical copies of this Caspar-Klug triangle by identifying the copies pairwise along a side to form a closed structure, all faces will be triangles and all vertices that are not a corner of a Caspar-Klug triangle will have degree $6$. If the triangles are glued into a triangulation of some surface, the degrees of the vertices of the original triangulation stay the same.

Automorphisms of a triangulation of the sphere map triangles to triangles. As the Caspar-Klug triangles always have the full set of orientation-preserving symmetries of the triangle, all orientation-preserving symmetries can be extended to the interior of the triangles. In other words: each orientation-preserving automorphism of the triangulation is also an automorphism of the decorated triangulation.

If (and only if) the parameters $(a,b)$ fulfill $b=0$ or $a=b$, the Caspar-Klug triangles also have mirror axes perpendicular to the midpoints of the edges. In this case the Caspar-Klug triangles have the full symmetry group of the triangle, and all automorphisms of a triangulation of the sphere that is decorated can be extended to the decorated triangulation, so that the whole automorphism group is preserved.

A general approach to local symmetry-preserving

operations on polyhedra

The use of operations on polyhedra possibly dates back to the ancient Greeks, who were the first to describe the Platonic solids and the Archimedean solids that can be constructed from the Platonic solids by simple operations that preserve the symmetry of the original object. When he rediscovered the Archimedean solids in his book Harmonices Mundi [11], Johannes Kepler coined the names now used for the Archimedean solids. The name truncated octahedron shows clearly that he considered this polyhedron to be constructed by truncation – a symmetry-preserving operation – from the octahedron.

Although these operations are often used and well-studied in mathematics, there currently exists no systematic way to describe them. There exists an extensive naming scheme using terms like ambo, kis, truncate, cantellate, runcinate etc., and for several subclasses there exist different techniques to describe them, e.g. the Conway polyhedron notation[12, Chapter 21], Schläfli symbols [13] or Wythoff symbols[14]. Nevertheless there is no definition of local symmetry-preserving operations and therefore also no technique to systematically describe all possible local symmetry-preserving operations or theorems about what local symmetry-preserving operations can do or cannot do. A list of popular operations can also be found on the Wikipedia site for the Conway notation [15].

In addition to these mathematically motivated operations that produce polyhedra from polyhedra, there is a long tradition in art and design of decorating polyhedra and other objects with parts of periodic tilings. Most famous are probably the Sphere with fish and the Sphere with Angels and Devils by M.C. Escher. For more information and examples see [16] and [17].

While operations on polyhedra were mainly interpreted as manipulating the solid object (e.g. truncation as cutting off vertices and thereby producing new faces), the results of the decorations were interpreted as decorated polyhedra – and not just new and different polyhedra. Only by interpreting decorations as combinatorial operations does it become clear how closely these two approaches are connected.

The term symmetry-preserving can easily be transformed into an exact requirement: the symmetry group of the polyhedron to which the operation is applied must be a subgroup of the symmetry group of the polyhedron that is the result of the operation. In most cases it will be the whole symmetry group of the result. This goal could also be obtained by taking global properties into account – e.g. the symmetry group itself – so the terms local and operation are still to be made precise. The classical operations like truncation are obviously what must be included in the definition, so checking that all classic operations are covered by the definition is a first test of the usefulness of the following definition.

Definition 1

Let $T$ be a periodic 3-connected tiling of the Euclidean plane with chamber system $C_{T}$ that is given by a barycentric subdivision that is invariant under the symmetries of $T$. Let $v_{0},v_{1},v_{2}$ be points in the Euclidean plane so that for $0\leq i<j\leq 2$ the line $L_{i,j}$ through $v_{i}$ and $v_{j}$ is a mirror axis of the tiling.

If the angle between $L_{0,1}$ and $L_{2,1}$ is $90$ degrees, the angle between $L_{2,1}$ and $L_{2,0}$ is $30$ degrees and consequently the angle between $L_{0,1}$ and $L_{0,2}$ is $60$ degrees, then the triangle $v_{0},v_{1},v_{2}$ subdivided into chambers as given by $C_{T}$ and the corners $v_{0},v_{1},v_{2}$ labelled with their names $v_{0},v_{1},v_{2}$ is called a local symmetry-preserving operation, lsp operation for short.

The result of applying an lsp operation $O$ to a tiling or polyhedron $P$ is given by subdividing each chamber $C$ of the chamber system $C_{P}$ of $P$ with $O$ by identifying for $0\leq i\leq 2$ the vertices of $O$ labelled $v_{i}$ with the vertices labelled $i$ in $C$. Note that this operation is purely combinatorial and that the angles of $O$ are not preserved.

The choice of $30$ degrees, resp. $60$ degrees is a reference to Goldberg’s paper. For people familiar with tilings and Delaney-Dress symbols as in [10], it is immediately clear that one could also interchange the values, require $45$ degrees for both or even choose other values and go to hyperbolic or spherical tilings and still get the same set of operations. For example, if one would use $45$ degrees for both angles, the dual would come from the regular square tiling but would be the same combinatorial operation. As another example Figure 7 shows the tiling from which truncation can be obtained with two angles of $45$ degrees.

An alternative way to understand that different choices of angles give the same set of operations is as follows: Let $T_{0}$ be a tiling of the sphere or the Euclidean or hyperbolic plane where the symmetry group acts transitively on the chambers. Then any lsp operation as defined in Definition 1 can be applied to $T_{0}$ to give another tiling $T_{1}$ from which the operation can be recovered by requiring the set of angles as in the chambers of $T_{0}$.

The symmetry group of the tiling $P$ is an automorphism of the chamber system $C_{P}$. This implies immediately that it is also an automorphism of the result $O(P)$ justifying the term symmetry-preserving operation. The fact that operations are defined on the level of chambers justifies the term local. Nevertheless one must ask whether all operations one wants to call local symmetry-preserving operation are covered. We motivate our definition by showing that all well known and often used operations on polyhedra are covered by our definition. In Figure 8 we give the chamber operations for the operations identity, dual, ambo, truncate, chamfer, and quinto. Other operations (like join, kis, expand, otho, bevel, meta, etc.) can be written as products of these operations.

Though initially described as purely geometrical operations, lsp operations have also been studied combinatorially (see e.g. [18]) and have been described as subdivisions of chambers of the tiling or polyhedron. Figure 7 in [18] describes how the chamfering operation can be implemented as a chamber operation and can be applied to a map given as an abstract chamber system. Representing operations on polyhedra as chamber operations means that the operation is given and coded or described as a chamber operation, so the operation defines the decomposition of the chamber. Definition 1 establishes the reverse direction: it says which decompositions of chambers into smaller chambers define an operation.

This characterization is necessary as not every subdivision of a chamber defines an operation that transforms a chamber system into another chamber system of a tiling or polyhedron – see Figure 9 for an easy example. One of the properties of chamber systems of tilings or polyhedra is that each $1$-vertex is contained in exactly $4$ chambers. Applying the subdivision in Figure 9 to a tiling or polyhedron, the result would not have this property.

While in [1] and [3] it is simply assumed that the result of applying the construction to a dodecahedron or an icosahedron is again a polyhedron, this assumption should be proven in general. In order to justify our approach to lsp operations we have to prove that after applying such an operation to a polyhedron, the result is again a polyhedron. The theorem of Steinitz allows translation of this requirement to a purely combinatorial theorem:

Theorem 1

If $P$ is a polyhedron and $O$ an lsp operation, then $O(P)$ is a polyhedron.

Proof:

The fact that the resulting graph is plane is obvious. The fact that it is 3-connected needs some more work. Let $G$ be a plane graph or tiling and $B_{G}$ the barycentric subdivision of $G$.

It is well known and easy to prove that $G$ is $3$-connected if and only if $B_{G}$ has the following properties:

(i)

$B_{G}$ is a simple graph – that is: there are no cycles of length $2$.

(ii)

The only cycles in $B_{G}$ of length $3$ are boundaries of chambers.

(iii)

The only cycles in $B_{G}$ of length $4$ have on one side two triangles sharing an edge or $4$ triangles sharing a 1-vertex.

As the barycentric subdivision $B_{O(P)}$ is a subdivision of $B_{P}$, for each edge $e$ of $B_{O(P)}$ there is a chamber $C(e)$ of $B_{P}$ containing it. If the edge is included in the boundary of a chamber, $C(e)$ is not unique. In order to prove that $O(P)$ is 3-connected, we have to prove that $B_{O(P)}$ has properties (i), (ii), and (iii).

Figures 10 and 11 give all possibilities for a 4-cycle in $B_{P}$ together with all chambers containing edges of the cycles. If vertices displayed in these figures as distinct vertices would represent the same vertex in $B_{P}$, this would contradict at least one of the properties (i), (ii), and (iii), so all vertices shown are pairwise distinct. Figures 10 and 11 also show corresponding areas in the tiling for an lsp operation. From the definition of an operation (that is: the requirement for the location of mirror planes), it follows that all vertices in the displayed area are pairwise distinct. After the decoration, there is an isomorphism from the vertices of the barycentric subdivision $B_{O(P)}$ inside the drawn area onto the vertices of the barycentric subdivision of the tiling in the drawn area.

For a cycle $e_{0},\dots,e_{k}$ in $B_{O(P)}$ let $C(e_{0}),\dots,C(e_{k})=C_{0},\dots,C_{k}$ be the cyclic sequence of chambers of $B_{P}$, so that for $0\leq i\leq k$ edge $e_{i}$ is contained in $C(e_{i})$. As long as the sequence of chambers has more than one chamber and we have $C_{i}=C_{i+1}$ for some $i$ with the indices taken modulo $k+1$, we can remove $C_{i}$ (and renumber the chambers). This way we get the reduced sequence $C_{0},\dots,C_{m}$. Let now $e_{0},\dots,e_{k}$ be a cycle in $B_{O(P)}$ with length at most $4$. The reduced sequence $C_{0},\dots,C_{m}$ also has length $m+1\leq 4$. If $m+1\leq 2$, the cycle is completely contained in one chamber or in two chambers sharing an edge. As the image of $e_{0},\dots,e_{k}$ under $\phi$ is a cycle of the same length, it must satisfy the requirements described in (i),(ii), and (iii), so also $e_{0},\dots,e_{k}$ must satisfy these requirements.

Assume now that $m+1\geq 3$. Depending on whether $e_{0},\dots,e_{k}$ crosses the border between two chambers in a vertex or an edge, for $0\leq i\leq m$ the chambers $C_{i}$ and $C_{i+1}$ (with the indices modulo $m+1$) share one or two vertices. Furthermore each $C_{i}$ shares in total at least two vertices with the others. Checking the different configurations of $3$ or $4$ chambers in a chambersystem that have these properties one can prove that there is a cycle $Z$ of length $m+1\geq 3$ in $B_{P}$ with an edge in each of $C_{0},\dots,C_{m}$.

If $m=2$, $Z$ is the boundary of a chamber in $B_{P}$. This implies that the cycle $e_{0},\dots,e_{k}$ lies completely in the region described by a chamber $C$ of $B_{P}$ and the chambers sharing an edge with $C$, so that again the cycle together with its interior can be mapped into the tiling by an isomorphism.

If $m=3$, $Z$ must either be the boundary of the union of $2$ chambers sharing an edge or the boundary of the union of $4$ chambers sharing a 1-vertex. In each case we can map the interior of $Z$ and the decoration of chambers neighbouring $Z$ isomorphically into the tiling, which implies that $e_{0},\dots,e_{4}$ satisfies property (iii).

Together these observations imply that $B_{O(P)}$ fulfills (i),(ii), and (iii) and that $O(P)$ is 3-connected.

$\blacksquare$

A first step towards general local operations

preserving orientation-preserving symmetries

Although the emphasis of this paper is on the work of Goldberg, Fuller, Caspar and Klug and on operations preserving all symmetries, we want to make a first step – details are postponed to a later paper – towards operations that preserve orientation-preserving automorphisms but not necessarily orientation-reversing automorphisms. In the case of Goldberg, they could be described by two subdivisions – one of a black and one of a white triangle. In general, this is not possible, and it is necessary to describe how a quadrangle containing a white and a black triangle that share an edge must be subdivided.

Definition 2

Let $T$ be a periodic 3-connected tiling of the Euclidean plane with chamber system $C_{T}$, and let $v_{2},v_{0},v_{1},v^{\prime}_{0}$ be points in the Euclidean plane so that:

• •

$v_{2}$* is the center of a rotation $\rho_{v_{2}}$ by $60$ degrees in counterclockwise direction that is a symmetry of the tiling.*

• •

$v^{\prime}_{0}=\rho_{v_{2}}(v_{0})$**

• •

$v_{1}$* is the midpoint between $v^{\prime}_{0}$ and $v_{0}$ and the center of a rotation $\rho_{v_{1}}$ by $180$ degrees that is a symmetry of the tiling (so also $v^{\prime}_{0}=\rho_{v_{1}}(v_{0})$).*

Let $Q$ be a simple cycle in $C_{T}$ through $v_{2},v_{0},v_{1},v^{\prime}_{0}$ (in this order). For $\{x,y\}\in\{\{v_{2},v_{0}\},\{v_{2},v^{\prime}_{0}\},\{v_{1},v^{\prime}_{0}\},\{v_{1},v_{0}\}\}$ let $P_{x,y}$ denote the path on $Q$ from $x$ to $y$ not containing any other vertex of $\{v_{2},v_{0},v_{1},v_{0}^{\prime}\}$.

If $P_{v_{2},v^{\prime}_{0}}=\rho_{v_{2}}(P_{v_{2},v_{0}})$ and $P_{v_{1},v^{\prime}_{0}}=\rho_{v_{1}}(P_{v_{1},v_{0}})$, then we call the quadrangle $Q$ with cornerpoints $v_{2},v_{0},v_{1},v^{\prime}_{0}$ labelled with the names $v_{2},v_{0},v_{1},v_{0}^{\prime}$ and subdivided into chambers as given by $C_{T}$, a local operation that preserves orientation-preserving symmetries, lopsp operation for short.

Let $P$ be a polyhedron or tiling given as a chamber system. We call a pair of (black and white) chambers sharing a $1$-vertex and a $2$-vertex a double chamber. Each chamber is contained in exactly one double chamber. The result of applying a lopsp operation $O$ to a polyhedron or tiling $P$ is given by subdividing each double chamber of $P$ with $O$ by identifying $v_{2}$ with the $2$-vertex of the double chamber, $v_{0}$ with the [math]-vertex of the white chamber, $v_{1}$ with the $1$-vertex of the double chamber, and $v^{\prime}_{0}$ with the [math]-vertex of the black chamber. Note that this operation is purely combinatorial and that the angles of $O$ are not preserved.

As already mentioned in the section about Goldberg’s approach where the chiral case is discussed, also here there are various ways to draw the boundaries of the quadrangle $Q$ that lead to equivalent operations, that is, operations that when applied to a polyhedron give the same result. We will postpone working out the details to a later paper.

It is tempting to conjecture that for each lopsp operation there is a way to choose the quadrangle so that the subdivision of the double chamber can be expressed by two subdivisions of the chambers – one for the black chambers and one for the white chambers. Figure 12 gives an example of an operation where this is not the case. In order to avoid misunderstandings, we mention the fact already here, but a proof has to be postponed as first the necessary prerequisites (e.g. results about different ways to choose the edges of the quadrangles that lead to equivalent operations) have to be formally introduced and proven.

Again, it must be shown that operations used in the literature are covered by this definition. The mirror image plays a special role as an operation as it does not change the combinatorial structure of a polyhedron. It is neither an lsp operation nor a lopsp operation. On the level of chamber systems it can be described as changing the orientation of the chambers, so black ones become white and the other way around. We will show that propellor, snub and whirl can be obtained from tilings. Other operations (e.g. gyro) can be obtained by a combination of lsp operations and these lopsp operations. In Figure 13,Figure 14, and Figure 15 the quadrangles $v_{2},v_{0},v_{1},v_{0}^{\prime}$ are shown next to the tiling for better visibility. All chiral Caspar-Klug operations can be represented this way.

Although we could not find publications where decorations of double chambers are used to represent lopsp operations like propellor, snub or whirl, it may be considered common knowledge among people who work with chamber systems that such a representation is possible. Again, Definition 2 establishes the inverse direction and gives a criterion for which decompositions of double chambers define an operation.

Conclusion and future work

We have described the differences between the approaches of Goldberg, Fuller and Caspar and Klug. We have also made clear that what is generally referred to as the Goldberg-Coxeter operation is due to Caspar and Klug. Furthermore, we have explained the error in Goldberg’s paper and how it can be corrected.

By exactly defining – based on Goldberg’s approach – local symmetry-preserving operations (lsp) and local operations that preserve orientation-preserving symmetries (lopsp), it becomes possible not only to study specific operations but also to study the classes of all such operations. These definitions make it possible to design general proofs instead of examining each operation individually (Theorem 1 is an example for this). The first task will now be to work out the details for lopsp operations, identifying which ways the boundary of the operation can be chosen when $v_{2},v_{0},v_{1},v_{0}^{\prime}$ are given, and proving that for each such choice the resulting decorated polyhedra are isomorphic. It is also necessary to prove a result corresponding to Theorem 1.

The results presented in this paper also open new fields for investigation. Here are some examples:

Definition 3

Two operations $O$, $O^{\prime}$ are called equivalent if for all polyhedra $P$ the results of applying $O$ and $O^{\prime}$ to $P$ are isomorphic.

While it is immediately evident that there are non-equivalent operations $O$, $O^{\prime}$ that produce isomorphic results for some polyhedra and non-isomorphic results for others (see for example the operations identity and dual applied to self-dual versus not self-dual polyhedra), it is not clear how exceptional these cases are.

Question: Are self-dual polyhedra the only polyhedra for which the application of non-equivalent operations can give isomorphic results?

This last question seems to be related to another one: lsp operations preserve the symmetry group of the polyhedron to which they are applied. In some cases they can also add new symmetries. An example is the operation ambo applied to self-dual polyhedra. By studying lsp operations applied to tilings of the torus, it is easy to see that there exist operations that can increase symmetry but cannot be written as a product of other operations. Consider for example a $4$-regular toroidal tiling with $4$-gons where the group $Z_{n}\times Z_{n}$ is a subgroup of the combinatorial symmetry group. If we apply the lsp operation that subdivides each $4$-gon into $9$ smaller $4$-gons in a $3\times 3$ pattern, we get $Z_{3n}\times Z_{3n}$ as a subgroup. The number of chambers grows by a factor of $9$, while for all products with ambo the numbers of chambers grow by an even factor – so the operation cannot be written as a product of ambo and other operations. Nevertheless, such examples are not known for polyhedra.

Question: Can all lsp operations that can increase the number of symmetries of a polyhedron be written as a product of operations involving ambo?

In order to measure the impact of an operation $O$ on the size or complexity of a polyhedron, the ratios of the numbers of vertices or faces before and after applying the operation are not good measures, as they do not depend on the operation alone. This can already be seen at the example of the operation dual. Focussing on the edges of the polyhedra we get such an invariant: the inflation rate $g(O)$, defined as the number of edges after applying the operation to a polyhedron divided by the number of edges before the operation is an invariant of the operation. It is equal to the number we would get by counting chambers before and after the operation or by counting the number of chambers in an lsp operation $O$. For lopsp operations the inflation rate is equal to half the number of chambers in the operation.

Task: Develop a computer program that can generate all non-equivalent lsp and lopsp operations for a given inflation rate.

Of course one could also ask for operations with a given inflation rate that produce only polyhedra with a given degree of the vertices or given face sizes.

Symmetric polyhedra and periodic tilings can be seen as containing redundant information, as all the information is given by the structure of the fundamental domain and the symmetry group distributing this information. This interpretation would not describe polyhedra with a trivial symmetry group as redundant, but the situation is very similar to that of subdivisions of chambers in the role of the fundamental domain and polyhedra in the role of the group: when we apply operations with a large inflation factor to polyhedra with a trivial symmetry group, in most cases the product will have a trivial symmetry group too and the information of the operation – the subdivided chamber – is distributed via the chamber system of the polyhedron.

Task: Develop an efficient algorithm that can determine whether a given polyhedron can be described as an operation with inflation factor $g>1$ on a smaller polyhedron.