Episode 1 of 2
Poinsot's Rediscovery
- When
- 1809
- Where
- Paris (inferred from Poinsot's 1804–1809 teaching post at Lycée Bonaparte)
Poinsot rediscovered Kepler's figures in 1809 by assembling star pentagons around each vertex, establishing a new definition of regularity.
In 1809, Louis Poinsot rediscovered Kepler's figures by assembling star pentagons around each vertex. This method established the definition of regularity that Cauchy later used to prove the enumeration of regular star polyhedra was complete in 1810. Paris is inferred from Poinsot's 1804–1809 post as a mathematics teacher at Lycée Bonaparte in Paris, not stated as the rediscovery location.
Sources
- Kepler–Poinsot polyhedron Wikipedia, revision of 2026-09-08
- Louis Poinsot Wikipedia, revision of 2026-09-12
Machine-drafted from the cited Wikipedia passages and checked by a reviewing model, not by a human editor. Every passage cites the revision it was written from; dates and places follow those passages.