Aside from learning the most basic names for shapes in geometry class and elementary school, I never really realized that there are other names for shapes until my math major friend, recounting the awfulness that is the Putnam exam (look it up… it’s intense) told me about how one of the questions involved recreating an icosahedron (part of the logo for MAA). I did not think that I would hear this word again until, in class, we talked about how many viruses have icosahedral capsids.
An icosahedron has 20 faces and 60 rotational symmetries (which I don’t really understand but am impressed by). As we mentioned in class, the more cyclic symmetry a protein has, the more stable that protein is, which makes that level of symmetry quite frightening indeed. Some examples of viruses that exhibit an icosahedron include the adenoside virus, the rhinovirus (which is a cause of the cold!) and the herpes virus.
Check out this link for more info! (http://www.biologie.uni-hamburg.de/lehre/bza/virus/introicos.htm)