In
geometry
Geometry (; ) is a branch of mathematics concerned with properties of space such as the distance, shape, size, and relative position of figures. Geometry is, along with arithmetic, one of the oldest branches of mathematics. A mathematician w ...
, a 6-cube is a six-
dimension
In physics and mathematics, the dimension of a mathematical space (or object) is informally defined as the minimum number of coordinates needed to specify any point within it. Thus, a line has a dimension of one (1D) because only one coo ...
al
hypercube
In geometry, a hypercube is an ''n''-dimensional analogue of a square ( ) and a cube ( ); the special case for is known as a ''tesseract''. It is a closed, compact, convex figure whose 1- skeleton consists of groups of opposite parallel l ...
with 64
vertices, 192
edge
Edge or EDGE may refer to:
Technology Computing
* Edge computing, a network load-balancing system
* Edge device, an entry point to a computer network
* Adobe Edge, a graphical development application
* Microsoft Edge, a web browser developed by ...
s, 240 square
faces, 160 cubic
cells, 60
tesseract
In geometry, a tesseract or 4-cube is a four-dimensional hypercube, analogous to a two-dimensional square and a three-dimensional cube. Just as the perimeter of the square consists of four edges and the surface of the cube consists of six ...
4-faces, and 12
5-cube 5-faces.
It has
Schläfli symbol
In geometry, the Schläfli symbol is a notation of the form \ that defines List of regular polytopes and compounds, regular polytopes and tessellations.
The Schläfli symbol is named after the 19th-century Swiss mathematician Ludwig Schläfli, wh ...
, being composed of 3
5-cubes around each 4-face. It can be called a hexeract, a
portmanteau
In linguistics, a blend—also known as a blend word, lexical blend, or portmanteau—is a word formed by combining the meanings, and parts of the sounds, of two or more words together. of
tesseract
In geometry, a tesseract or 4-cube is a four-dimensional hypercube, analogous to a two-dimensional square and a three-dimensional cube. Just as the perimeter of the square consists of four edges and the surface of the cube consists of six ...
(the ''4-cube'') with ''hex'' for six (dimensions) in
Greek
Greek may refer to:
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...
. It can also be called a regular dodeca-6-tope or dodecapeton, being a
6-dimensional polytope constructed from 12 regular
facet
Facets () are flat faces on geometric shapes. The organization of naturally occurring facets was key to early developments in crystallography, since they reflect the underlying symmetry of the crystal structure. Gemstones commonly have facets cu ...
s.
Related polytopes
It is a part of an infinite family of polytopes, called
hypercube
In geometry, a hypercube is an ''n''-dimensional analogue of a square ( ) and a cube ( ); the special case for is known as a ''tesseract''. It is a closed, compact, convex figure whose 1- skeleton consists of groups of opposite parallel l ...
s. The
dual of a 6-cube can be called a
6-orthoplex, and is a part of the infinite family of
cross-polytope
In geometry, a cross-polytope, hyperoctahedron, orthoplex, staurotope, or cocube is a regular, convex polytope that exists in ''n''- dimensional Euclidean space. A 2-dimensional cross-polytope is a square, a 3-dimensional cross-polytope is a reg ...
s. It is composed of various
5-cubes, at perpendicular angles on the u-axis, forming coordinates (x,y,z,w,v,u).
Applying an ''
alternation'' operation, deleting alternating vertices of the 6-cube, creates another
uniform polytope, called a
6-demicube, (part of an infinite family called
demihypercubes), which has 12
5-demicube and 32
5-simplex facets.
As a configuration
This
configuration matrix represents the 6-cube. The rows and columns correspond to vertices, edges, faces, cells, 4-faces and 5-faces. The diagonal numbers say how many of each element occur in the whole 6-cube. The nondiagonal numbers say how many of the column's element occur in or at the row's element.
[Coxeter, Complex Regular Polytopes, p.117]
Cartesian coordinates
Cartesian coordinates
In geometry, a Cartesian coordinate system (, ) in a plane is a coordinate system that specifies each point uniquely by a pair of real numbers called ''coordinates'', which are the signed distances to the point from two fixed perpendicular o ...
for the vertices of a 6-cube centered at the origin and edge length 2 are
: (±1,±1,±1,±1,±1,±1)
while the interior of the same consists of all points (x
0, x
1, x
2, x
3, x
4, x
5) with −1 < x
i < 1.
Construction
There are three
Coxeter group
In mathematics, a Coxeter group, named after H. S. M. Coxeter, is an abstract group that admits a formal description in terms of reflections (or kaleidoscopic mirrors). Indeed, the finite Coxeter groups are precisely the finite Euclidean ref ...
s associated with the 6-cube, one
regular, with the C
6 or
,3,3,3,3Coxeter group
In mathematics, a Coxeter group, named after H. S. M. Coxeter, is an abstract group that admits a formal description in terms of reflections (or kaleidoscopic mirrors). Indeed, the finite Coxeter groups are precisely the finite Euclidean ref ...
, and a half symmetry (D
6) or
3,1,1">3,1,1Coxeter group. The lowest symmetry construction is based on
hyperrectangle
In geometry, a hyperrectangle (also called a box, hyperbox, k-cell or orthotopeCoxeter, 1973), is the generalization of a rectangle (a plane figure) and the rectangular cuboid (a solid figure) to higher dimensions. A necessary and sufficient cond ...
s or
proprisms,
cartesian product
In mathematics, specifically set theory, the Cartesian product of two sets and , denoted , is the set of all ordered pairs where is an element of and is an element of . In terms of set-builder notation, that is
A\times B = \.
A table c ...
s of lower dimensional hypercubes.
Projections
Related polytopes
The 64 vertices of a 6-cube also represent a regular skew 4-polytope . Its net can be seen as a 4×4×4 matrix of 64 cubes, a periodic subset of the
cubic honeycomb
The cubic honeycomb or cubic cellulation is the only proper regular space-filling tessellation (or honeycomb (geometry), honeycomb) in Euclidean 3-space made up of cube, cubic cells. It has 4 cubes around every edge, and 8 cubes around each verte ...
, , in 3-dimensions. It has 192 edges, and 192 square faces. Opposite faces fold together into a 4-cycle. Each fold direction adds 1 dimension, raising it into 6-space.
The ''6-cube'' is 6th in a series of
hypercube
In geometry, a hypercube is an ''n''-dimensional analogue of a square ( ) and a cube ( ); the special case for is known as a ''tesseract''. It is a closed, compact, convex figure whose 1- skeleton consists of groups of opposite parallel l ...
:
This polytope is one of 63
uniform 6-polytopes generated from the B
6 Coxeter plane, including the regular 6-cube or
6-orthoplex.
References
*
Coxeter, H.S.M. ''
Regular Polytopes'', (3rd edition, 1973), Dover edition, p. 296, Table I (iii): Regular Polytopes, three regular polytopes in n-dimensions (n>=5)
*
External links
*
*
Multi-dimensional Glossary: hypercubeGarrett Jones
{{Polytopes
6-polytopes
Articles containing video clips