120 Sided Die - Just Roll With It

(Inside Science) -- What rolls, has 120 sides and has no real practical use? It’s a 120 sided die – it has the most sides of any die in the world. There are lots of unique dice sets around – think dungeons and dragons. And there are even 60 sided dice. But this is a one-of-a-kind die that challenged even the best mathematicians to figure out how to squeeze all those sides and numbers onto one die. 

Robert Fathauer, PhD, a mathematician at The Dice Lab, and part of the team that invented the die, “It’s an expensive die, but compared to a lot of other things, it’s not a lot of money.”

According to Fathauer, “I thought, is anyone going to pay $12 for a die there’s no use for? It turns out the answer is yes, but I think it’s just because it is an interesting object.”

It’s not just interesting, it’s mind boggling that someone could design a die with 120 sides. But Robert and Henry Segerman, PhD, mathematician and cofounder of The Dice Lab, have accomplished the seemingly impossible, but not without its challenges.

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