A peculiar pyramidal shape, devised by mathematicians, always comes to rest on its base, slowly and uncannily righting itself when placed on other sides. The object confirms John Conway's longstanding but unproven conjecture regarding the stability of tetrahedra.
The tetrahedron, which weighs 120 grams and measures 50 centimeters along its longest side, is made of lightweight carbon fiber and dense tungsten carbide. To work, it had to be engineered to a level of precision within one-tenth of a gram and one-tenth of a millimeter. But the final construction always flip-flops onto one face, exactly as it should.
Never play Yahtzee with these guys. It was devised and created by Gábor Domokos, Gergő Almádi, Krisztina Regős, and Robert Dawson. Domokos you may remember from his work on the mysterious Gömböc, a blob with only one stable and one unstable point of equilibrium. You may also be interested in novel tesselations.
Previously:
• Some guy spent 3 years trying to invent the perfect new pasta shape
• Scientists discover weird new kind of shape found in nature
