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Historically, simple geometric forms have been the basis for envisioning
structure in architecture. It follows that a study of advanced geometric forms
may provide the basis for envisioning advanced structures in architecture.
Helical Geometry is the study of geometry within the tetrahedron, the most
fundamental of the 5 Platonic Solids of Solid Geometry.
Helical Geometry is the geometry of the straight twisted rod (Fig. 3), in the
same way that Plane and Solid Geometry are the geometries of the straight
rod. (Fig. 4) These are two distinctly different representations of distance,
and so, two distinctly different approaches to understanding the geometric
properties of space.
All plane right-angled triangles express a numerical model, the formula of the
mathematical theorem which states: The square of the longest side of the
plane right-angled triangle is equal to the sum of the squares of the two
shortest sides, which is, c2=a2+b2, the formula of the Pythagorean Theorem,
the most important theorem in all mathematics. The plane right-angled
triangle expresses the Table of Natural Trigonometric Functions of Sines and
Cosines, without which there would be neither Newtons’s laws of nature, nor
Einstein’s Theories of Relativity. The validity of science’s natural laws and
universal theories, dependent as they are on the plane right-angled triangle,
speaks for the correspondence of this geometrical structure with Nature’s
symmetry, and the source of symmetry in 2-dimensional space. If there were
no such correspondence, then its numerical expressions of the plane right-
angled triangle would not have led to subsequent mathematical descriptions
corresponding with the laws of nature and universe.
The helical form is universal, existing in every form of matter. From the
microcosmic, atomic structure of crystal growth to the molecular structure of
DNA to the macrocosmic spiral form of galaxies, all structure in matter
mimics the source of symmetry in Nature. Uncovering the 3-dimensional
geometry of the helical form in Nature, then, is to uncover the 3-dimensional
source of the symmetry in nature.
You can point at the shortest edge of any helical building panel and say, "The
length of this shortest edge is the cosine of the degrees of rotation or twist
along its length (Fig. 13)." Likewise, you can point at the horizontal leg of a
plane right-angled triangle and say, "The length of this shortest edge is the
cosine of the degrees of rotation relative to the hypotenuse (Fig. 14)." Helical
Geometry incorporates the knowledge of the plane right-angled triangle,
transforming it into a 3-dimensional concept.
Imagine that we had never seen the geometric structures of Plane and Solid
Geometry, never seen a circle, square, triangle, sphere, cube or pyramid. If
all we knew was Helical Geometry it would reveal to us all of these archetypal
geometric structures. And this stands to reason. If Helical Geometry
represents an advance in geometrical knowledge, then, it should be able to
generate in its geometrical configurations the geometrical structures of Plane
and Solid Geometry, the geometries that historically preceded Helical
Geometry.