¶ Triclinic
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Index Entry
‘Cline’ means an incline or slope. ‘Clinic’ means special characteristics of a family.
"I use ‘triclinic’ to describe the three edges and three faces around a corner: tetrahedron.
"In the goofy language of crystallography they talk of inclines and faces, but crystallography pays no attention to the fact that square faces lack stability. The word ‘polygon’ is OK as in a triangle. And the word ‘trigonometry’ is OK for angles. But ‘polyhedron’ is not OK because it refers to descriptions in terms of faces and faces are not stable.
“We need a word to serve as the ‘gons’ of polygon: what it takes six of to stabilize the cube and 12 of to stabilize the rhombic dodecahedron.”
