To Plato is accredited the concept of he five solid bodies"", although the postulation of their existence is credited by some to Pythagoras and by others to Theaetetus, a contemporary of Plato. The respective polyhedrons each have their symbolic connotation: the tetrahedron (fire), the cube (earth), the octahedron (air), the icosahedron (water) and finally the dodecahedron (as a delineator of the entire universe). These five solid bodies, incidentally, are the five only regular polyhedrons that can exist; that means having equal sides, equal regular faces and equal angles, all inscribable in a sphere" |