August 27, 2015

Octahedral Moondog


Located in the National Gallery of Art's Sculpture Garden, Tony Smith's Moondog is based on a lattice of tetrahedral and octahedral components (15 stretched octahedra and 10 tetrahedra). As described by George Hart, you can think of the structure as part of a diamond crystal lattice, with the smaller tetrahedral faces (visible as equilateral triangles) representing carbon atoms and the remaining "struts" as carbon-carbon bonds.


Photos by I. Peterson

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