Ken Earley Dr.

McGinnis 09-12-11 Hon 3010 Strictly Platonic Many of the ideas and thought processes that were brought to light in Ancient Greece, are still around today. They work together in complex matrix that works towards explaining the universe. Various philosophers set out to explain parts of the cosmos; their ideas were then either discounted or expanded upon. Two philosophers still talked about eons later, Pythagoras and Plato, had philosophies that intertwine to explain more of our universe. The basis of Pythagoreanism lies in two separate values, on which lifestyles were built, metempsychosis and structure. Pythagoras emphasis on structure resulted in a self-imposed lifestyle that ritualized diet and religion. His search for structure throughout his life and the universe resulted in a lot of what he is remembered for. This search yielded advances in mathematical structures like numerical classification and geometry. Pythagoras had a large impact in advancing mathematics and science, his impact can also be seen through the transparent lives of many other philosophers. Plato is another philosopher who valued structure, and searched for it. Among the many things that Plato influenced over his years on the earth, Platonic Solids is one of the most interesting. There are five basic elements to the Ancient Greek world, to each are assigned a different Platonic solid. These five figures consist of the cube, dodecahedron, icosahedron, octahedron, and tetrahedron. Plato associated each figure with a basic element. The associations werent made haphazardly; they are easily relatable, keeping in mind each element and the physical representations of each solid. Looking at a cube, the corners seem to be fairly sharp, until you look at the other Platonic solids, which have much more drastic angles. The cube represents earth, simply illustrated by dirt. Dirts crumbling flow, isnt as smooth or fine as the flow of a liquid, which has a more complex structure, of the five solids. This chunk-like structure of the cube causes a jagged, or rough flow, like sifting dirt through your hands. Liquid, or water, is represented by the icosahedron, the most spherical appearing solid, as such water flows smoothly, as if youre rolling microscopic balls out of your hand. Air, the octahedron of the group, has molecules that are smooth and fine enough that we barely feel them most of the time. Fire is represented by the tetrahedron, a very sharp, pointy, polyhedron that represents the stabbing heat of fire. The understanding of these four basic Greek elements is fairly simple, though the math behind them can become rather complex. There are five of these solids, each are mathematically perfectly symmetrical polyhedra. Each of the five figures have many shared characteristics that help classify them as Platonic solids. Each figure has corresponding numbers of faces and vertices, arranged so that each vertex has a sum of angles that are less than 360 degrees and have at least three faces that form the corner. If these conditions arent met the figure formed wont be a truly three-dimensional, symmetrical figure. Also, each figure can be linearly represented, as the number of faces plus the number of vertices is equal to the number of edges, plus two. (# of faces + # of vertices = # of edges + 2). All of the math behind the justification for the existance of only five Platonic solids falls in line with the basis Pythagorean mathematics.