December 20, 2025
Dome Drama Incoming
Perfecting Steve Baer's Triple Dome
A 4D twist tries to fix the dome gap—cue cheers, side-eye, and memes
TLDR: Baer’s triple dome had an angle mismatch, and a new 4D-inspired visualization suggests a clever fix—until the “where does the floor go?” debate explodes. The crowd is split between awe at the artistry and gripes about real-world buildability, with jokes flying about geometry’s “betrayal.”
Steve Baer’s legendary “triple dome” gets a modern glow-up with stunning 3D views and a wild 4D workaround for the stubborn angle that kept three domes from snapping together. Fans are swooning over the visuals and Baer’s own poetic line about being “betrayed by geometry,” while skeptics clutch their rulers. One camp is all heart—celebrating Baer’s scrappy Drop City builds with salvaged car tops and the sheer art-meets-science vibes. Another fires back with “cool demo, but how do you put a floor in that?” after the 4D fix admits a real-world headache.
The plot twist? The angle wasn’t the soap-bubble-perfect 120°, but a mischievous 116.56505°, leading Baer to literally “fudge” the fit. Cue memes: “116.56505° is my new password,” and “Nature, we need to talk.” The Zometool crew shows you can model it, but commenters joke about stepping on stray connectors like LEGO. Some Fullerstans side-eye the Baer worship; others rally behind Baer’s own words in RID — a love story, calling the gap part of the charm. It’s art, it’s math, it’s architecture—and it’s a comment section throwing popcorn at the eternal question: perfect geometry vs practical builds.
Key Points
- •Steve Baer’s triple dome fused three rhombicosidodecahedra (RIDs) but faced a geometric mismatch after truncating caps to expose partial decagons.
- •The required 120° joining angle was instead approximately 116.56505°, leaving an angular gap that Baer closed by force (“fudging”).
- •Physical modeling with Zometool highlights the mismatch and would require special connectors without fully resolving the gap.
- •A 4D solution exists: in the runcinated 120-cell, three RIDs can meet seamlessly in separate hyperplanes, and 4D-to-3D projections can realize buildable clusters.
- •Although a simple projected cluster uses limited strut/panel types, defining a floor is nontrivial; alternative projections can yield more symmetry to better integrate a floor.