Bowers style acronym
Bowers style acronyms are a shorthand notation created by Jonathan Bowers, used to identify polytopes without having to write their full (often quite long) names. They have been since expanded on, most notably by Richard Klitzing, either via direct request to the former or by means of expanding general building rules of him, which therefore has resulted in the umbrella term official Bowers style acronym (OBSA) for shorthands in accordance with Bowers's original ones.
Their development and adoption has been largely driven by the project to classify all uniform polytopes in 4 dimensions and higher, although other non-uniform types of polytopes such as CRF polytopes have been christened with OBSAs. They are not universally liked within the polytope enthusiast community.
The general building principle is to start with the full name and reduce every element (numbers, operators, the base object, etc.) into single characters. Then, characters are added euphoniously to make the OBSA readable/pronouncable. For example, "small rhombicuboctahedron" first becomes SRCO, and finally sirco.
Spaces may be added and some letters may be doubled, in order to make the intended pronunciation more obvious or make the name more unique or memorable. Spaces are not necessarily added to separate functionally different parts of the name (such as operators and the ending facet counts). For example, "medial omnicircumfacetopental trishecatonicosachoron" becomes mom fapathi, even though the "medial omnicircum-" part of the name (that contributes mom to the OBSA) is just an arbitrary cut of the full name.
Table of common morphemes[edit | edit source]
Combination | Meaning |
---|---|
af | antifastegium |
ap | antiprism |
appy | antiprismatic pyramid |
aw | antiwedge |
co | cuboctahedron |
cuf | cupofastegium |
dip | duoprism |
dp, dip | disprismato- |
dt, dit | ditrigonary, duotegum |
fip, fap | facetopental |
gr | great rhombated |
gye | gyroelongated |
hiddix | hecatonicosidishexacosichoron |
id | icosidodecahedron |
kv, kav, kev, kiv | skewverted |
nt | penteractitriacontaditeron |
ofp, ofap | omnifacetopental |
omfap | omnicircumfacetopental |
p(...)ex | partially (...-)expanded |
puf | pucofastegium |
pv, piv | prismatoverted |
rawv | retrosphenoverted |
quit, quat | quasitruncated |
rawv | retrosphenoverted |
sr | small rhombated |
tip | trioprism |
wav | sphenoverted |
xady, ixady | hexacosidishecatonicosachoron |
xithi, xathi | hexacositrishecatonicosachoron |
xhi | hexacosihecatonicosachoron |
xog | hexeractihexacontatetrapeton |