Letters from the July 31, 2004, issue of Science News
By Science News
More than child’s play?
While reading about the amazing properties of Archimedes’ Stomachion (“Glimpses of Genius,” SN: 5/15/04, p. 314: Glimpses of Genius), I wondered whether a mere child’s toy would exhibit such mathematical precision, with each vertex falling on a lattice point of a 12-by-12 grid. Perhaps Archimedes took the basic plan of the toy and tweaked it to see what properties he could induce.
Jeffry D. Mueller
Eldersburg, Md.
Just for kicks, I drew the puzzle in a computer-assisted drawing program and looked at the areas of each one of the shapes. I was sure that they would add up to 144 units (assuming a box that is 12 units square), but I was unprepared to discover that each shape is a precise multiple of 3 units in area. Another amazing property of this puzzle!