Eight-dimensional space
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In mathematics, a sequence of ''n''
real number In mathematics, a real number is a number that can be used to measure a ''continuous'' one-dimensional quantity such as a distance, duration or temperature. Here, ''continuous'' means that values can have arbitrarily small variations. Every ...
s can be understood as a
location In geography, location or place are used to denote a region (point, line, or area) on Earth's surface or elsewhere. The term ''location'' generally implies a higher degree of certainty than ''place'', the latter often indicating an entity with an ...
in ''n''-
dimensional 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 coordi ...
space. When ''n'' = 8, the set of all such locations is called 8-dimensional space. Often such spaces are studied as
vector space In mathematics and physics, a vector space (also called a linear space) is a set whose elements, often called '' vectors'', may be added together and multiplied ("scaled") by numbers called ''scalars''. Scalars are often real numbers, but can ...
s, without any notion of distance. Eight-dimensional
Euclidean space Euclidean space is the fundamental space of geometry, intended to represent physical space. Originally, that is, in Euclid's ''Elements'', it was the three-dimensional space of Euclidean geometry, but in modern mathematics there are Euclidean ...
is eight-dimensional space equipped with the
Euclidean metric In mathematics, the Euclidean distance between two points in Euclidean space is the length of a line segment between the two points. It can be calculated from the Cartesian coordinates of the points using the Pythagorean theorem, therefore occ ...
. More generally the term may refer to an eight-dimensional vector space over any
field Field may refer to: Expanses of open ground * Field (agriculture), an area of land used for agricultural purposes * Airfield, an aerodrome that lacks the infrastructure of an airport * Battlefield * Lawn, an area of mowed grass * Meadow, a grass ...
, such as an eight-dimensional
complex Complex commonly refers to: * Complexity, the behaviour of a system whose components interact in multiple ways so possible interactions are difficult to describe ** Complex system, a system composed of many components which may interact with each ...
vector space, which has 16 real dimensions. It may also refer to an eight-dimensional manifold such as an 8-sphere, or a variety of other geometric constructions.


Geometry


8-polytope

A
polytope In elementary geometry, a polytope is a geometric object with flat sides ('' faces''). Polytopes are the generalization of three-dimensional polyhedra to any number of dimensions. Polytopes may exist in any general number of dimensions as an ...
in eight dimensions is called an 8-polytope. The most studied are the
regular polytope In mathematics, a regular polytope is a polytope whose symmetry group acts transitively on its flags, thus giving it the highest degree of symmetry. All its elements or -faces (for all , where is the dimension of the polytope) — cells, ...
s, of which there are only three in eight dimensions: the
8-simplex In geometry, an 8- simplex is a self-dual regular 8-polytope. It has 9 vertices, 36 edges, 84 triangle faces, 126 tetrahedral cells, 126 5-cell 4-faces, 84 5-simplex 5-faces, 36 6-simplex 6-faces, and 9 7-simplex 7-faces. Its dihedral angle is ...
,
8-cube In geometry, an 8-cube is an eight-dimensional hypercube. It has 256 vertices, 1024 edges, 1792 square faces, 1792 cubic cells, 1120 tesseract 4-faces, 448 5-cube 5-faces, 112 6-cube 6-faces, and 16 7-cube 7-faces. It is represented by Schlä ...
, and
8-orthoplex In geometry, an 8-orthoplex or 8-cross polytope is a regular 8-polytope with 16 vertices, 112 edges, 448 triangle faces, 1120 tetrahedron cells, 1792 5-cells ''4-faces'', 1792 ''5-faces'', 1024 ''6-faces'', and 256 ''7-faces''. It has two constr ...
. A broader family are the
uniform 8-polytope In eight-dimensional geometry, an eight-dimensional polytope or 8-polytope is a polytope contained by 7-polytope facets. Each 6-polytope ridge being shared by exactly two 7-polytope facets. A uniform 8-polytope is one which is vertex-transiti ...
s, constructed from fundamental symmetry domains of reflection, each domain defined by a
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 refle ...
. Each uniform polytope is defined by a ringed Coxeter-Dynkin diagram. The
8-demicube In geometry, a demiocteract or 8-demicube is a uniform 8-polytope, constructed from the 8-hypercube, octeract, with alternated vertices removed. It is part of a dimensionally infinite family of uniform polytopes called demihypercubes. E. L. Elt ...
is a unique polytope from the D8 family, and 421, 241, and 142 polytopes from the E8 family.


7-sphere

The 7-sphere or hypersphere in eight dimensions is the seven-dimensional surface equidistant from a point, e.g. the origin. It has symbol , with formal definition for the 7-sphere with radius ''r'' of S^7 = \left\. The volume of the space bounded by this 7-sphere is V_8\,=\frac\,R^8 which is 4.05871 × ''r''8, or 0.01585 of the
8-cube In geometry, an 8-cube is an eight-dimensional hypercube. It has 256 vertices, 1024 edges, 1792 square faces, 1792 cubic cells, 1120 tesseract 4-faces, 448 5-cube 5-faces, 112 6-cube 6-faces, and 16 7-cube 7-faces. It is represented by Schlä ...
that contains the 7-sphere.


Kissing number problem

The
kissing number problem In geometry, the kissing number of a mathematical space is defined as the greatest number of non-overlapping unit spheres that can be arranged in that space such that they each touch a common unit sphere. For a given sphere packing (arrangement of ...
has been solved in eight dimensions, thanks to the existence of the 421 polytope and its associated
lattice Lattice may refer to: Arts and design * Latticework, an ornamental criss-crossed framework, an arrangement of crossing laths or other thin strips of material * Lattice (music), an organized grid model of pitch ratios * Lattice (pastry), an orna ...
. The kissing number in eight dimensions is 240.


Octonions

The octonions are a
normed division algebra In mathematics, Hurwitz's theorem is a theorem of Adolf Hurwitz (1859–1919), published posthumously in 1923, solving the Hurwitz problem for finite-dimensional unital real non-associative algebras endowed with a positive-definite quadratic f ...
over the real numbers, the largest such algebra. Mathematically they can be specified by 8-tuplets of real numbers, so form an 8-dimensional vector space over the reals, with addition of vectors being the addition in the algebra. A normed algebra is one with a product that satisfies :\, xy\, \leq \, x\, \, y\, for all ''x'' and ''y'' in the algebra. A normed
division algebra In the field of mathematics called abstract algebra, a division algebra is, roughly speaking, an algebra over a field in which division, except by zero, is always possible. Definitions Formally, we start with a non-zero algebra ''D'' over a fie ...
additionally must be finite-dimensional, and have the property that every non-zero vector has a unique multiplicative inverse. Hurwitz's theorem prohibits such a structure from existing in dimensions other than 1, 2, 4, or 8.


Biquaternions

The complexified quaternions \mathbb \otimes \mathbb, or "
biquaternion In abstract algebra, the biquaternions are the numbers , where , and are complex numbers, or variants thereof, and the elements of multiply as in the quaternion group and commute with their coefficients. There are three types of biquaternions co ...
s," are an eight-dimensional algebra dating to
William Rowan Hamilton Sir William Rowan Hamilton LL.D, DCL, MRIA, FRAS (3/4 August 1805 – 2 September 1865) was an Irish mathematician, astronomer, and physicist. He was the Andrews Professor of Astronomy at Trinity College Dublin, and Royal Astronomer of Irela ...
's work in the 1850s. This algebra is equivalent (that is, isomorphic) to the Clifford algebra C \ell _2 (\mathbb) and the
Pauli algebra In mathematical physics and mathematics, the Pauli matrices are a set of three complex matrices which are Hermitian, involutory and unitary. Usually indicated by the Greek letter sigma (), they are occasionally denoted by tau () when used in ...
. It has also been proposed as a practical or pedagogical tool for doing calculations in
special relativity In physics, the special theory of relativity, or special relativity for short, is a scientific theory regarding the relationship between space and time. In Albert Einstein's original treatment, the theory is based on two postulates: # The laws ...
, and in that context goes by the name
Algebra of physical space In physics, the algebra of physical space (APS) is the use of the Clifford algebra, Clifford or geometric algebra Cl3,0(R) of the three-dimensional Euclidean space as a model for (3+1)-dimensional spacetime, representing a point in spacetime via a ...
(not to be confused with the
Spacetime algebra In mathematical physics, spacetime algebra (STA) is a name for the Clifford algebra Cl1,3(R), or equivalently the geometric algebra . According to David Hestenes, spacetime algebra can be particularly closely associated with the geometry of speci ...
, which is 16-dimensional.)


References

* H.S.M. Coxeter: ** H.S.M. Coxeter, ''Regular Polytopes'', 3rd Edition, Dover New York, 1973 * Kaleidoscopes: Selected Writings of H.S.M. Coxeter, edited by F. Arthur Sherk, Peter McMullen, Anthony C. Thompson, Asia Ivic Weiss, Wiley-Interscience Publication, 1995,
Wiley::Kaleidoscopes: Selected Writings of H.S.M. Coxeter
** (Paper 22) H.S.M. Coxeter, ''Regular and Semi Regular Polytopes I'', ath. Zeit. 46 (1940) 380–407, MR 2,10** (Paper 23) H.S.M. Coxeter, ''Regular and Semi-Regular Polytopes II'', ath. Zeit. 188 (1985) 559-591** (Paper 24) H.S.M. Coxeter, ''Regular and Semi-Regular Polytopes III'', ath. Zeit. 200 (1988) 3-45br>Table of the Highest Kissing Numbers Presently Known
maintained by Gabriele Nebe and
Neil Sloane __NOTOC__ Neil James Alexander Sloane (born October 10, 1939) is a British-American mathematician. His major contributions are in the fields of combinatorics, error-correcting codes, and sphere packing. Sloane is best known for being the creator a ...
(lower bounds) * .
Review
. * (Second printing) {{Dimension topics Dimension Multi-dimensional geometry 8 (number)