Refold rigidity of convex polyhedra

Abstract

We show that every convex polyhedron may be unfolded to one planar piece, and then refolded to a different convex polyhedron. If the unfolding is restricted to cut only edges of the polyhedron, we identify several polyhedra that are “edge-refold rigid” in the sense that each of their unfoldings may only fold back to the original. For example, each of the 43,380 edge unfoldings of a dodecahedron may only fold back to the dodecahedron, and we establish that 11 of the 13 Archimedean solids are also edge-refold rigid. We begin the exploration of which classes of polyhedra are and are not edge-refold rigid, demonstrating infinite rigid classes through perturbations, and identifying one infinite nonrigid class: tetrahedra.