Optimal Placement of Seismographs w/12 Instruments

[webbwbb]

I am curious in knowing the something about the "optimal" placements of seismographs in a planet. Assuming you know nothing about the geography of a planet and want to learn the most you can and only have 12 seismographs to use, where would you place them? I honestly do not know if this is the right forum for this topic but it seemed like the most fitting of any here. Thank you for your help.

 

[billiards]

I am curious in knowing the something about the "optimal" placements of seismographs in a planet. Assuming you know nothing about the geography of a planet and want to learn the most you can and only have 12 seismographs to use, where would you place them? I honestly do not know if this is the right forum for this topic but it seemed like the most fitting of any here. Thank you for your help.

By seismographs I assume you mean seismometers, i.e. the actual instruments. If you know nothing then put them at an even distribution. What would be the name of the 3-D shape with 12 nodes uniformly distributed over the surface of a sphere? (Note this would not be possible on a planet like Earth with ocean blocking the way of a conventional seismometer. There are practical considerations as well, as it might be technically more difficult (expensive) to achieve perfect spread, but I am ignoring those considerations.)

If you do know something about the geology then you have a different question -- perhaps we can talk about that in a different post?

And yes, this is the right forum for this topic.

 

[webbwbb]

Thank you. The name of that geometric figure is a dodcahedron. I was able to figure out the coordinates for placement with Google Earth Mars view.