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Which Tetrahedra Fill Space?

by Marjorie Senechal

Award: Carl B. Allendoerfer

Year of Award: 1982

Publication Information: Mathematics Magazine, Vol. 54, (1981), pp. 227-243

Summary: Early mathematicians gave some puzzling answers to the question: today the problem is not completely solved.

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About the Author: (from Mathematics Magazine, Vol. 54 (1981)) Marjorie Senechal grew up in Lexington, Kentucky. She received her B.S. degree from the University of Chicago in 1960 and her Ph.D. from the Illinois Institute of Technology in 1965. The following year she began teaching at Smith College, where she is now Professor of Mathematics and chair of the department. At Smith she met the crystallographer Dorothy Wrinch who helped to focus her interests in number theory, algebra, and geometry on the theory of regular spatial arrangements and its applications. Among other things this has led to an unusual interdisciplinary course on symmetry, the book Patterns of Symmetry (co-edited with the chemist George Fleck) and extended research visits at the crystollagraphic institutes of the University of Groningen in The Netherlands and the Academy of Sciences of the USSR. She is a member of the Five-College Committee on Applied Mathematics and the Smith College Committee on the History of Science.

Subject classification(s): Geometry and Topology | Plane Geometry | Patterns
Publication Date: 
Wednesday, January 31, 2007