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OP-01105 Open

Immersed spheres made of regular pentagons

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Let $M$ be a closed polyhedral surface homeomorphic to the sphere $S^2$ whose faces are all congruent regular pentagons, and suppose that $M$ is immersed in $\mathbb{R}^3$.

For surfaces made of congruent squares, the corresponding question has a positive answer. The Kepler–Poinsot great dodecahedron is an immersed surface with regular pentagonal faces, but it is not a sphere: its Euler characteristic $V - E + F$ is $-6$. Kenyon's question is also of interest for surfaces embedded in $\mathbb{R}^3$.

Problem. Must $M$ be the boundary of a solid obtained by gluing solid dodecahedra together along common faces?

Source: Kenyon (2006), re-posed at Oberwolfach (2009); Problem 72 of The Open Problems Project (Demaine, Mitchell and O'Rourke).

Imported from topp.openproblem.net.

Classification

Primary
MG — Metric Geometry
Secondary
GT
Keywords
dodecahedra, polyhedral surface, regular pentagons, The Open Problems Project

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OP-01105, "Immersed spheres made of regular pentagons", clopen.solutions.