Secret Shape of the Universe #philosophy #plato #maths — Transcript

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1. 0:00Let me tell you a secret about why Plato
2. 0:02thought the dodecahedron was the shape
3. 0:04of the universe. Here we have the famous
4. 0:06two triangles from the Timaeus, and
5. 0:09you'll notice that it can be constructed
6. 0:10by drawing three circles, which gives a
7. 0:13triad
8. 0:15symbology, which is another little
9. 0:17interesting uh detail there. But from
10. 0:20these two triangles, we can construct
11. 0:22all of the Platonic solids except for
12. 0:25one, the dodecahedron. The smaller
13. 0:28triangle here is the half equilateral
14. 0:31triangle, and from that we can create
15. 0:33the tetrahedron, which is the simplest.
16. 0:36It's the fire element. We can create the
17. 0:39octahedron, which is the air element.
18. 0:41And we can create the icosahedron, which
19. 0:44is has the most number of sides, and
20. 0:47that's the water element. From the
21. 0:49larger triangle, it's really just a half
22. 0:51square, and from that we create the
23. 0:53cube, which is the earth element. But he
24. 0:56doesn't give us a triangle
25. 0:58for the dodecahedron. Why? Uh can't we
26. 1:03construct the dodecahedron from a
27. 1:05triangle? Well, you'll notice that the
28. 1:08dodecahedron has pentagonal faces,
29. 1:11right? It's a It's a pentagon there. So,
30. 1:13let's try to construct that from a
31. 1:17triangle. So, here you'll see I have a
32. 1:19triangle, and yes, you can put a nice
33. 1:22triangle on a on a uh pentagon. And when
34. 1:26I rotate it around, you'll see the
35. 1:28problem that occurs is that there's
36. 1:30still another pentagon left within the
37. 1:34pentagon when you try to build it out of
38. 1:36circles. So, it requires an infinite
39. 1:39number of triangles to ever fill this
40. 1:42in.
41. 1:43And I think that's kind of the secret
42. 1:45and sacred reason why this was the shape
43. 1:48of the universe. And also interestingly,
44. 1:52that triangle right there has the golden
45. 1:54ratio in it. So, the two shorter sides
46. 1:57are if you consider them one, then the
47. 2:00longer side on the base of it would be
48. 2:02the golden ratio.
49. 2:04But, there's a nice little hidden reason
50. 2:07why Plato thought, and why he was
51. 2:10correct,
52. 2:11that the dodecahedron is the shape of
53. 2:13the universe. Subscribe if you'd like to
54. 2:15learn more about the geometric,
55. 2:18astrological, symbological
56. 2:21secrets of the universe. Thank you.