Exploring the Math Behind the FIFA 2026 Trionda Ball

Mon, 06 Jul 2026 19:28:42 Z

Every four years, the world comes together to watch one of the most anticipated sporting events in history: the FIFA World Cup.

Behind all the anticipation, venue planning, and media fanfare, there are many artists and researchers who devote themselves to designing a new FIFA World Cup ball to be rolled out for the public eye (pun intended).

This post presents an overview of the geometric ideas behind the design of the FIFA 2026 "Trionda" ball, using Maple to visualize and explore these concepts in depth. The ideas presented here were inspired by this Scientific American Article. For more information and facts about the 2026 Trionda ball, as well how the shape of the ball impacts play on the pitch, I suggest you check it out!

FIFA ball designs are often inspired by one of the 5 Platonic solids. A Platonic solid is a convex polyhedron with each face being the same regular polygon with the same number of faces meeting at each corner.

This year, the Trionda ball was constructed from the simplest of these shapes, the tetrahedron, consisting of 4 triangles, with 3 faces meeting at each corner. Of the five Platonic solids, this shape has the fewest faces, making it the least sphere-like. Turning such a simple polyhedron into a smooth ball is therefore a surprisingly challenging geometric problem.

So how can we turn our pointy tetrahedron into something that rolls? Rather than trying to transform the entire tetrahedron at once, we can start by redesigning a single triangular face. The goal is to create a curved triangle that will fit perfectly with three identical copies of itself while covering the surface of a sphere.

Formal Power Series

Roy Hughes — Mon, 06 Jul 2026 02:03:26 Z

I tried to evaluate the function

convert(BesselJ(nu, x), FormalPowerSeries)

only to obtain the Error message

Error, (in convert/FormalPowerSeries) input contains no or more than one variable.

Seems a rather strange error. I thought it would treat x as a single variable

Maple Support Updates

Roy Hughes — Mon, 06 Jul 2026 01:51:17 Z

@aroche

Is there a Maple Support Update package for Maple 2025 ? If so, how do I download it?

Thanks, Roy

How do I make a single line list?

Mister_Matthew_abc — Sun, 05 Jul 2026 02:37:33 Z

Hi Maple community, and all,

Have a small ask, regarding prime numbers.

see attached

vertical_list_of_prime_numbers.mw

vertical_list_of_prime_numbers.pdf

Thanks in advance.

Regards,

Matt

Where is this form of dsolve and its constants described in Help text?

Earl — Sat, 04 Jul 2026 19:50:14 Z

I cannot find a description of the use of the form of dsolve and the following evaluation of its constants which are found in the downloaded worksheet.

Gnadig_2_problem_177_Rod_moving_on_a_wire_in_B_field.mw

Three region plots

KIRAN SAJJAN — Sat, 04 Jul 2026 16:51:01 Z

Dear sir how to plots the graphs in three region BC from -1 to 0 and 0 to 1 and 1 to 2
3_region_work.mw