A Short History of an Elusive Yet Ubiquitous Structure in Chemistry, Materials, and Mathematics

摘要

Herein we describe some properties and the occurrences of a beautiful geometric figure that is ubiquitous in chemistry and materials science, however, it is not as well-known as it should be. We call attention to the need for mathematicians to pay more attention to the richly structured natural world, and for materials scientists to learn a little more about mathematics. Our account is informal and eschews any pretence of mathematical rigor, but does start with some necessary mathematics.