geometry Geometry (; ) is, with arithmetic, one of the oldest branches of mathematics. It is concerned with properties of space such as the distance, shape, size, and relative position of figures. A mathematician who works in the field of geometry is c ...

, a 4-polytope (sometimes also called a polychoron, polycell, or polyhedroid) is a four-dimensional

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 -d ...

. It is a connected and closed figure, composed of lower-dimensional polytopal elements: vertices, edges,

faces The face is the front of an animal's head that features the eyes, nose and mouth, and through which animals express many of their emotions. The face is crucial for human identity, and damage such as scarring or developmental deformities may affe ...

(

polygon In geometry, a polygon () is a plane figure that is described by a finite number of straight line segments connected to form a closed ''polygonal chain'' (or ''polygonal circuit''). The bounded plane region, the bounding circuit, or the two toge ...

s), and cells (

polyhedra In geometry, a polyhedron (plural polyhedra or polyhedrons; ) is a three-dimensional shape with flat polygonal faces, straight edges and sharp corners or vertices. A convex polyhedron is the convex hull of finitely many points, not all on t ...

). Each face is shared by exactly two cells. The 4-polytopes were discovered by the Swiss mathematician

Ludwig Schläfli Ludwig Schläfli (15 January 1814 – 20 March 1895) was a Swiss mathematician, specialising in geometry and complex analysis (at the time called function theory) who was one of the key figures in developing the notion of higher-dimensional space ...

before 1853. The two-dimensional analogue of a 4-polytope is a

, and the three-dimensional analogue is a

polyhedron In geometry, a polyhedron (plural polyhedra or polyhedrons; ) is a three-dimensional shape with flat polygonal faces, straight edges and sharp corners or vertices. A convex polyhedron is the convex hull of finitely many points, not all on th ...

. Topologically 4-polytopes are closely related to the uniform honeycombs, such as the

cubic honeycomb The cubic honeycomb or cubic cellulation is the only proper regular space-filling tessellation (or honeycomb) in Euclidean 3-space made up of cubic cells. It has 4 cubes around every edge, and 8 cubes around each vertex. Its vertex figure is a re ...

, which tessellate 3-space; similarly the 3D

cube In geometry, a cube is a three-dimensional solid object bounded by six square faces, facets or sides, with three meeting at each vertex. Viewed from a corner it is a hexagon and its net is usually depicted as a cross. The cube is the only r ...

is related to the infinite 2D

square tiling In geometry, the square tiling, square tessellation or square grid is a regular tiling of the Euclidean plane. It has Schläfli symbol of meaning it has 4 squares around every vertex. Conway called it a quadrille. The internal angle of th ...

. Convex 4-polytopes can be ''cut and unfolded'' as nets in 3-space.

Definition

A 4-polytope is a closed four-dimensional figure. It comprises vertices (corner points), edges,

and cells. A cell is the three-dimensional analogue of a face, and is therefore a

. Each face must join exactly two cells, analogous to the way in which each edge of a polyhedron joins just two faces. Like any polytope, the elements of a 4-polytope cannot be subdivided into two or more sets which are also 4-polytopes, i.e. it is not a compound.

Geometry

The convex regular 4-polytopes are the four-dimensional analogues of the

Platonic solids In geometry, a Platonic solid is a convex, regular polyhedron in three-dimensional Euclidean space. Being a regular polyhedron means that the faces are congruent (identical in shape and size) regular polygons (all angles congruent and all edges c ...

. The most familiar 4-polytope is the

tesseract In geometry, a tesseract is the four-dimensional analogue of the cube; the tesseract is to the cube as the cube is to the square. Just as the surface of the cube consists of six square faces, the hypersurface of the tesseract consists of eig ...

or hypercube, the 4D analogue of the cube. The convex regular 4-polytopes can be ordered by size as a measure of 4-dimensional content (hypervolume) for the same radius. Each greater polytope in the sequence is ''rounder'' than its predecessor, enclosing more content within the same radius. The 4-simplex (5-cell) is the limit smallest case, and the 120-cell is the largest. Complexity (as measured by comparing configuration matrices or simply the number of vertices) follows the same ordering.

Visualisation

4-polytopes cannot be seen in three-dimensional space due to their extra dimension. Several techniques are used to help visualise them. ;Orthogonal projection

Orthogonal projection In linear algebra and functional analysis, a projection is a linear transformation P from a vector space to itself (an endomorphism) such that P\circ P=P. That is, whenever P is applied twice to any vector, it gives the same result as if it wer ...

s can be used to show various symmetry orientations of a 4-polytope. They can be drawn in 2D as vertex-edge graphs, and can be shown in 3D with solid faces as visible projective envelopes. ;Perspective projection Just as a 3D shape can be projected onto a flat sheet, so a 4-D shape can be projected onto 3-space or even onto a flat sheet. One common projection is a

Schlegel diagram In geometry, a Schlegel diagram is a projection of a polytope from \mathbb^d into \mathbb^ through a point just outside one of its facets. The resulting entity is a polytopal subdivision of the facet in \mathbb^ that, together with the origina ...

which uses

stereographic projection In mathematics, a stereographic projection is a perspective projection of the sphere, through a specific point on the sphere (the ''pole'' or ''center of projection''), onto a plane (geometry), plane (the ''projection plane'') perpendicular to ...

of points on the surface of a 3-sphere into three dimensions, connected by straight edges, faces, and cells drawn in 3-space. ;Sectioning Just as a slice through a polyhedron reveals a cut surface, so a slice through a 4-polytope reveals a cut "hypersurface" in three dimensions. A sequence of such sections can be used to build up an understanding of the overall shape. The extra dimension can be equated with time to produce a smooth animation of these cross sections. ;Nets A

net Net or net may refer to: Mathematics and physics * Net (mathematics), a filter-like topological generalization of a sequence * Net, a linear system of divisors of dimension 2 * Net (polyhedron), an arrangement of polygons that can be folded up ...

of a 4-polytope is composed of polyhedral cells that are connected by their faces and all occupy the same three-dimensional space, just as the polygon faces of a net of a polyhedron are connected by their edges and all occupy the same plane.

Topological characteristics

The topology of any given 4-polytope is defined by its

Betti number In algebraic topology, the Betti numbers are used to distinguish topological spaces based on the connectivity of ''n''-dimensional simplicial complexes. For the most reasonable finite-dimensional spaces (such as compact manifolds, finite simplicia ...

s and

torsion coefficient A torsion spring is a spring that works by twisting its end along its axis; that is, a flexible elastic object that stores mechanical energy when it is twisted. When it is twisted, it exerts a torque in the opposite direction, proportiona ...

s.Richeson, D.; ''Euler's Gem: The Polyhedron Formula and the Birth of Topoplogy'', Princeton, 2008. The value of the

Euler characteristic In mathematics, and more specifically in algebraic topology and polyhedral combinatorics, the Euler characteristic (or Euler number, or Euler–Poincaré characteristic) is a topological invariant, a number that describes a topological space ...

used to characterise polyhedra does not generalize usefully to higher dimensions, and is zero for all 4-polytopes, whatever their underlying topology. This inadequacy of the Euler characteristic to reliably distinguish between different topologies in higher dimensions led to the discovery of the more sophisticated Betti numbers. Similarly, the notion of orientability of a polyhedron is insufficient to characterise the surface twistings of toroidal 4-polytopes, and this led to the use of torsion coefficients.

Classification

Criteria

Like all polytopes, 4-polytopes may be classified based on properties like "

convexity Convex or convexity may refer to: Science and technology * Convex lens, in optics Mathematics * Convex set, containing the whole line segment that joins points ** Convex polygon, a polygon which encloses a convex set of points ** Convex polytope ...

" and "

symmetry Symmetry (from grc, συμμετρία "agreement in dimensions, due proportion, arrangement") in everyday language refers to a sense of harmonious and beautiful proportion and balance. In mathematics, "symmetry" has a more precise definit ...

". *A 4-polytope is ''

convex Convex or convexity may refer to: Science and technology * Convex lens, in optics Mathematics * Convex set, containing the whole line segment that joins points ** Convex polygon, a polygon which encloses a convex set of points ** Convex polytope ...

'' if its boundary (including its cells, faces and edges) does not intersect itself and the line segment joining any two points of the 4-polytope is contained in the 4-polytope or its interior; otherwise, it is ''non-convex''. Self-intersecting 4-polytopes are also known as star 4-polytopes, from analogy with the star-like shapes of the non-convex

star polygon In geometry, a star polygon is a type of non-convex polygon. Regular star polygons have been studied in depth; while star polygons in general appear not to have been formally defined, certain notable ones can arise through truncation operations ...

s and Kepler–Poinsot polyhedra. * A 4-polytope is '' regular'' if it is transitive on its

flags A flag is a piece of textile, fabric (most often rectangular or quadrilateral) with a distinctive design and colours. It is used as a symbol, a signalling device, or for decoration. The term ''flag'' is also used to refer to the graphic desi ...

. This means that its cells are all

congruent Congruence may refer to: Mathematics * Congruence (geometry), being the same size and shape * Congruence or congruence relation, in abstract algebra, an equivalence relation on an algebraic structure that is compatible with the structure * In mod ...

regular polyhedra A regular polyhedron is a polyhedron whose symmetry group acts transitively on its flags. A regular polyhedron is highly symmetrical, being all of edge-transitive, vertex-transitive and face-transitive. In classical contexts, many different equival ...

, and similarly its

vertex figures In geometry, a vertex figure, broadly speaking, is the figure exposed when a corner of a polyhedron or polytope is sliced off. Definitions Take some corner or vertex of a polyhedron. Mark a point somewhere along each connected edge. Draw lines ...

are congruent and of another kind of regular polyhedron. *A convex 4-polytope is '' semi-regular'' if it has a

symmetry group In group theory, the symmetry group of a geometric object is the group of all transformations under which the object is invariant, endowed with the group operation of composition. Such a transformation is an invertible mapping of the ambient ...

under which all vertices are equivalent (

vertex-transitive In geometry, a polytope (e.g. a polygon or polyhedron) or a tiling is isogonal or vertex-transitive if all its vertices are equivalent under the symmetries of the figure. This implies that each vertex is surrounded by the same kinds of face in ...

) and its cells are

. The cells may be of two or more kinds, provided that they have the same kind of face. There are only 3 cases identified by

Thorold Gosset John Herbert de Paz Thorold Gosset (16 October 1869 – December 1962) was an English lawyer and an amateur mathematician. In mathematics, he is noted for discovering and classifying the semiregular polytopes in dimensions four and higher, and ...

in 1900: the

rectified 5-cell In four-dimensional geometry, the rectified 5-cell is a uniform 4-polytope composed of 5 regular tetrahedral and 5 regular octahedral cells. Each edge has one tetrahedron and two octahedra. Each vertex has two tetrahedra and three octahedra. In t ...

rectified 600-cell In geometry, the rectified 600-cell or rectified hexacosichoron is a convex uniform 4-polytope composed of 600 regular octahedra and 120 icosahedra cells. Each edge has two octahedra and one icosahedron. Each vertex has five octahedra and two ico ...

, and

snub 24-cell In geometry, the snub 24-cell or snub disicositetrachoron is a convex uniform 4-polytope composed of 120 regular tetrahedral and 24 icosahedral cells. Five tetrahedra and three icosahedra meet at each vertex. In total it has 480 triangular face ...

. *A 4-polytope is ''

uniform A uniform is a variety of clothing worn by members of an organization while participating in that organization's activity. Modern uniforms are most often worn by armed forces and paramilitary organizations such as police, emergency services, se ...

'' if it has a

under which all vertices are equivalent, and its cells are

uniform polyhedra In geometry, a uniform polyhedron has regular polygons as faces and is vertex-transitive (i.e., there is an isometry mapping any vertex onto any other). It follows that all vertices are congruent. Uniform polyhedra may be regular (if also fa ...

. The faces of a uniform 4-polytope must be regular. * A 4-polytope is '' scaliform'' if it is vertex-transitive, and has all equal length edges. This allows cells which are not uniform, such as the regular-faced convex

Johnson solid In geometry, a Johnson solid is a strictly convex polyhedron each face of which is a regular polygon. There is no requirement that isohedral, each face must be the same polygon, or that the same polygons join around each Vertex (geometry), ver ...

s. *A regular 4-polytope which is also

is said to be a

convex regular 4-polytope In mathematics, a regular 4-polytope is a regular four-dimensional polytope. They are the four-dimensional analogues of the regular polyhedra in three dimensions and the regular polygons in two dimensions. There are six convex and ten star regu ...

. *A 4-polytope is ''prismatic'' if it is the

Cartesian product In mathematics, specifically set theory, the Cartesian product of two sets ''A'' and ''B'', denoted ''A''×''B'', is the set of all ordered pairs where ''a'' is in ''A'' and ''b'' is in ''B''. In terms of set-builder notation, that is : A\ti ...

of two or more lower-dimensional polytopes. A prismatic 4-polytope is uniform if its factors are uniform. The

hypercube In geometry, a hypercube is an ''n''-dimensional analogue of a square () and a cube (). It is a closed, compact, convex figure whose 1- skeleton consists of groups of opposite parallel line segments aligned in each of the space's dimensions, ...

is prismatic (product of two

square In Euclidean geometry, a square is a regular quadrilateral, which means that it has four equal sides and four equal angles (90-degree angles, π/2 radian angles, or right angles). It can also be defined as a rectangle with two equal-length adj ...

s, or of a

and

line segment In geometry, a line segment is a part of a straight line that is bounded by two distinct end points, and contains every point on the line that is between its endpoints. The length of a line segment is given by the Euclidean distance between ...

), but is considered separately because it has symmetries other than those inherited from its factors. *A ''

tiling Tiling may refer to: *The physical act of laying tiles * Tessellations Computing *The compiler optimization of loop tiling *Tiled rendering, the process of subdividing an image by regular grid *Tiling window manager People *Heinrich Sylvester T ...

honeycomb A honeycomb is a mass of Triangular prismatic honeycomb#Hexagonal prismatic honeycomb, hexagonal prismatic Beeswax, wax cells built by honey bees in their beehive, nests to contain their larvae and stores of honey and pollen. beekeeping, Beekee ...

of 3-space'' is the division of three-dimensional

Euclidean space Euclidean space is the fundamental space of geometry, intended to represent physical space. Originally, that is, in Euclid's Elements, Euclid's ''Elements'', it was the three-dimensional space of Euclidean geometry, but in modern mathematics ther ...

into a repetitive

grid Grid, The Grid, or GRID may refer to: Common usage * Cattle grid or stock grid, a type of obstacle is used to prevent livestock from crossing the road * Grid reference, used to define a location on a map Arts, entertainment, and media * News g ...

of polyhedral cells. Such tilings or tessellations are infinite and do not bound a "4D" volume, and are examples of infinite 4-polytopes. A ''uniform tiling of 3-space'' is one whose vertices are congruent and related by a

space group In mathematics, physics and chemistry, a space group is the symmetry group of an object in space, usually in three dimensions. The elements of a space group (its symmetry operations) are the rigid transformations of an object that leave it unchan ...

and whose cells are

Classes

The following lists the various categories of 4-polytopes classified according to the criteria above: Schlegel half-solid truncated 120-cell

Uniform 4-polytope In geometry, a uniform 4-polytope (or uniform polychoron) is a 4-dimensional polytope which is vertex-transitive and whose cells are uniform polyhedra, and faces are regular polygons. There are 47 non-prismatic convex uniform 4-polytopes. There ...

(

): * Convex uniform 4-polytopes (64, plus two infinite families) ** 47 non-prismatic convex uniform 4-polytope including: *** 6

Convex regular 4-polytope In mathematics, a regular 4-polytope is a regular four-dimensional polytope. They are the four-dimensional analogues of the regular polyhedra in three dimensions and the regular polygons in two dimensions. There are six convex and ten star regu ...

** Prismatic uniform 4-polytopes: *** × : 18 polyhedral hyperprisms (including cubic hyperprism, the regular

) *** Prisms built on antiprisms (infinite family) *** × :

duoprism In geometry of 4 dimensions or higher, a double prism or duoprism is a polytope resulting from the Cartesian product of two polytopes, each of two dimensions or higher. The Cartesian product of an -polytope and an -polytope is an -polytope, wher ...

s (infinite family) * Non-convex uniform 4-polytopes (10 + unknown) Ortho solid 016-uniform polychoron p33-t0

** 10 (regular) Schläfli-Hess polytopes ** 57 hyperprisms built on nonconvex uniform polyhedra ** Unknown total number of nonconvex uniform 4-polytopes: Norman Johnson and other collaborators have identified 2189 known cases (convex and star, excluding the infinite families), all constructed by

by Stella4D software.Uniform Polychora
Norman W. Johnson (Wheaton College), 1845 cases in 2005 Other convex 4-polytopes: *

Polyhedral pyramid In geometry, a pyramid () is a polyhedron formed by connecting a polygonal base and a point, called the apex. Each base edge and apex form a triangle, called a ''lateral face''. It is a conic solid with polygonal base. A pyramid with an base ...

* Polyhedral bipyramid *

Polyhedral prism In geometry, a prism is a polyhedron comprising an polygon base, a second base which is a translated copy (rigidly moved without rotation) of the first, and other faces, necessarily all parallelograms, joining corresponding sides of the two ...

Infinite uniform 4-polytopes of

Euclidean 3-space Three-dimensional space (also: 3D space, 3-space or, rarely, tri-dimensional space) is a geometric setting in which three values (called ''parameters'') are required to determine the position of an element (i.e., point). This is the informa ...

(uniform tessellations of convex uniform cells) * 28

convex uniform honeycomb In geometry, a convex uniform honeycomb is a uniform polytope, uniform tessellation which fills three-dimensional Euclidean space with non-overlapping convex polyhedron, convex uniform polyhedron, uniform polyhedral cells. Twenty-eight such honey ...

s: uniform convex polyhedral tessellations, including: ** 1 regular tessellation,

: Infinite uniform 4-polytopes of

hyperbolic 3-space In mathematics, hyperbolic space of dimension n is the unique simply connected, n-dimensional Riemannian manifold of constant sectional curvature equal to -1. It is homogeneous, and satisfies the stronger property of being a symmetric space. ...

(uniform tessellations of convex uniform cells) * 76 Wythoffian

convex uniform honeycombs in hyperbolic space In hyperbolic geometry, a uniform honeycomb in hyperbolic space is a uniform tessellation of uniform polyhedral cells. In 3-dimensional hyperbolic space there are nine Coxeter group families of compact convex uniform honeycombs, generated as Wyt ...

, including: ** 4 regular tessellation of compact hyperbolic 3-space: , , , Dual

uniform 4-polytope In geometry, a uniform 4-polytope (or uniform polychoron) is a 4-dimensional polytope which is vertex-transitive and whose cells are uniform polyhedra, and faces are regular polygons. There are 47 non-prismatic convex uniform 4-polytopes. There ...

(

cell-transitive In geometry, a tessellation of dimension (a plane tiling) or higher, or a polytope of dimension (a polyhedron) or higher, is isohedral or face-transitive if all its Face (geometry), faces are the same. More specifically, all faces must be not ...

): * 41 unique dual convex uniform 4-polytopes * 17 unique dual convex uniform polyhedral prisms * infinite family of dual convex uniform duoprisms (irregular tetrahedral cells) * 27 unique convex dual uniform honeycombs, including: **

Rhombic dodecahedral honeycomb The rhombic dodecahedral honeycomb (also dodecahedrille) is a space-filling tessellation (or honeycomb) in Euclidean 3-space. It is the Voronoi diagram of the face-centered cubic sphere-packing, which has the densest possible packing of equal s ...

Disphenoid tetrahedral honeycomb The tetragonal disphenoid tetrahedral honeycomb is a space-filling tessellation (or honeycomb) in Euclidean 3-space made up of identical tetragonal disphenoidal cells. Cells are face-transitive with 4 identical isosceles triangle faces. John Hor ...

Others: *

Weaire–Phelan structure In geometry, the Weaire–Phelan structure is a three-dimensional structure representing an idealised foam of equal-sized bubbles, with two different shapes. In 1993, Denis Weaire and Robert Phelan found that this structure was a better solution ...

periodic space-filling honeycomb with irregular cells Hemi-icosahedron coloured

Abstract regular 4-polytopes: *

11-cell In mathematics, the 11-cell (or hendecachoron) is a self-dual abstract regular 4-polytope ( four-dimensional polytope). Its 11 cells are hemi-icosahedral. It has 11 vertices, 55 edges and 55 faces. It has Schläfli symbol , with 3 hemi-icosahedr ...

* 57-cell These categories include only the 4-polytopes that exhibit a high degree of symmetry. Many other 4-polytopes are possible, but they have not been studied as extensively as the ones included in these categories.

References

Notes

Bibliography

* H.S.M. Coxeter: ** ** H.S.M. Coxeter, M.S. Longuet-Higgins and J.C.P. Miller: ''Uniform Polyhedra'', Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, Londne, 1954 ** 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,

*** (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) 3–45*

J.H. Conway John Horton Conway (26 December 1937 – 11 April 2020) was an English people, English mathematician active in the theory of finite groups, knot theory, number theory, combinatorial game theory and coding theory. He also made contributions to ...

and M.J.T. Guy: ''Four-Dimensional Archimedean Polytopes'', Proceedings of the Colloquium on Convexity at Copenhagen, page 38 und 39, 1965 * N.W. Johnson: ''The Theory of Uniform Polytopes and Honeycombs'', Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Toronto, 1966
Four-dimensional Archimedean Polytopes
(German), Marco Möller, 2004 PhD dissertation

External links

* * *
Uniform Polychora
Jonathan Bowers

* Dr. R. Klitzing

{{Polytopes Four-dimensional geometry Algebraic topology