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 ...

, the tetrahemihexahedron or hemicuboctahedron is a

uniform star polyhedron In geometry, a uniform star polyhedron is a self-intersecting uniform polyhedron. They are also sometimes called nonconvex polyhedra to imply self-intersecting. Each polyhedron can contain either star polygon faces, star polygon vertex figures, ...

, indexed as U₄. It has 7 faces (4

triangles A triangle is a polygon with three edges and three vertices. It is one of the basic shapes in geometry. A triangle with vertices ''A'', ''B'', and ''C'' is denoted \triangle ABC. In Euclidean geometry, any three points, when non-collinear ...

and 3

squares 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 a ...

), 12 edges, and 6 vertices. Its

vertex figure 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 (geometry), vertex of a polyhedron. Mark a point somewhere along each connect ...

is a

crossed quadrilateral In geometry a quadrilateral is a four-sided polygon, having four edges (sides) and four corners (vertices). The word is derived from the Latin words ''quadri'', a variant of four, and ''latus'', meaning "side". It is also called a tetragon, ...

. Its

Coxeter–Dynkin diagram In geometry, a Coxeter–Dynkin diagram (or Coxeter diagram, Coxeter graph) is a graph with numerically labeled edges (called branches) representing the spatial relations between a collection of mirrors (or reflecting hyperplanes). It describe ...

is (although this is a double covering of the tetrahemihexahedron). It is the only non-

prismatic uniform polyhedron In geometry, a prismatic uniform polyhedron is a uniform polyhedron with dihedral symmetry. They exist in two infinite families, the uniform prisms and the uniform antiprisms. All have their vertices in parallel planes and are therefore prismatoi ...

with an odd number of faces. Its

Wythoff symbol In geometry, the Wythoff symbol is a notation representing a Wythoff construction of a uniform polyhedron or plane tiling within a Schwarz triangle. It was first used by Coxeter, Longuet-Higgins and Miller in their enumeration of the uniform pol ...

is 3/2 3 , 2, but that represents a double covering of the tetrahemihexahedron with eight triangles and six squares, paired and coinciding in space. (It can more intuitively be seen as two coinciding tetrahemihexahedra.) It is a

hemipolyhedron In geometry, a hemipolyhedron is a uniform star polyhedron some of whose faces pass through its center. These "hemi" faces lie parallel to the faces of some other symmetrical polyhedron, and their count is half the number of faces of that other po ...

. The "hemi" part of the name means some of the faces form a group with half as many members as some regular polyhedron—here, three square faces form a group with half as many faces as the regular hexahedron, better known as the cube—hence ''hemihexahedron''. Hemi faces are also oriented in the same direction as the regular polyhedron's faces. The three square faces of the tetrahemihexahedron are, like the three facial orientations of the cube, mutually

perpendicular In elementary geometry, two geometric objects are perpendicular if they intersect at a right angle (90 degrees or π/2 radians). The condition of perpendicularity may be represented graphically using the ''perpendicular symbol'', ⟂. It can ...

. The "half-as-many" characteristic also means that hemi faces must pass through the center of the polyhedron, where they all intersect each other. Visually, each square is divided into four

right triangle A right triangle (American English) or right-angled triangle (British), or more formally an orthogonal triangle, formerly called a rectangled triangle ( grc, ὀρθόσγωνία, lit=upright angle), is a triangle in which one angle is a right an ...

s, with two visible from each side.

Related surfaces

It is a

non-orientable In mathematics, orientability is a property of some topological spaces such as real vector spaces, Euclidean spaces, surfaces, and more generally manifolds that allows a consistent definition of "clockwise" and "counterclockwise". A space i ...

surface. It is unique as the only

uniform polyhedron 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 ...

with an

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 ...

of 1 and is hence a

projective polyhedron In geometry, a (globally) projective polyhedron is a tessellation of the real projective plane. These are projective analogs of spherical polyhedra – tessellations of the sphere – and toroidal polyhedra – tessellations of the toroids. Projec ...

, yielding a representation of the

real projective plane In mathematics, the real projective plane is an example of a compact non-orientable two-dimensional manifold; in other words, a one-sided surface. It cannot be embedded in standard three-dimensional space without intersecting itself. It has bas ...

very similar to the ''

Roman surface In mathematics, the Roman surface or Steiner surface is a self-intersecting mapping of the real projective plane into three-dimensional space, with an unusually high degree of symmetry. This mapping is not an immersion of the projective plane; ...

''.

Related polyhedra

It has the same vertices and edges as the regular

octahedron In geometry, an octahedron (plural: octahedra, octahedrons) is a polyhedron with eight faces. The term is most commonly used to refer to the regular octahedron, a Platonic solid composed of eight equilateral triangles, four of which meet at ea ...

. It also shares 4 of the 8 triangular faces of the octahedron, but has three additional square faces passing through the centre of the polyhedron. The dual figure is the

tetrahemihexacron In geometry, the tetrahemihexahedron or hemicuboctahedron is a uniform star polyhedron, indexed as U4. It has 7 faces (4 triangles and 3 squares), 12 edges, and 6 vertices. Its vertex figure is a crossed quadrilateral. Its Coxeter–Dynkin dia ...

. It is 2-covered by the

cuboctahedron A cuboctahedron is a polyhedron with 8 triangular faces and 6 square faces. A cuboctahedron has 12 identical vertices, with 2 triangles and 2 squares meeting at each, and 24 identical edges, each separating a triangle from a square. As such, it ...

, which accordingly has the same abstract

(2 triangles and two squares: 3.4.3.4) and twice the vertices, edges, and faces. It has the same topology as the

abstract polyhedron In mathematics, an abstract polytope is an algebraic partially ordered set which captures the dyadic property of a traditional polytope without specifying purely geometric properties such as points and lines. A geometric polytope is said to be ...

hemi-cuboctahedron A hemi-cuboctahedron is an abstract polyhedron, containing half the faces of a semiregular cuboctahedron. It has 4 triangular faces and 3 square faces, 12 edges, and 6 vertices. It can be seen as a rectified hemi-octahedron or rectified hemi-c ...

. It may also be constructed as a crossed triangular cuploid. All cuploids and their duals are topologically projective planes.

Tetrahemihexacron

The tetrahemihexacron is the dual of the tetrahemihexahedron, and is one of nine

dual hemipolyhedra In geometry, a hemipolyhedron is a uniform star polyhedron some of whose faces pass through its center. These "hemi" faces lie parallel to the faces of some other symmetrical polyhedron, and their count is half the number of faces of that other p ...

. Since the hemipolyhedra have

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 ...

passing through the center, the dual figures have corresponding vertices at infinity; properly, on the

at infinity. In

Magnus Wenninger Father Magnus J. Wenninger Order of Saint Benedict, OSB (October 31, 1919Banchoff (2002)– February 17, 2017) was an American mathematician who worked on constructing polyhedron models, and wrote the first book on their construction. Early life ...

's ''Dual Models'', they are represented with intersecting prisms, each extending in both directions to the same vertex at infinity, in order to maintain symmetry. In practice the model prisms are cut off at a certain point that is convenient for the maker. Wenninger suggested these figures are members of a new class of

stellation In geometry, stellation is the process of extending a polygon in two dimensions, polyhedron in three dimensions, or, in general, a polytope in ''n'' dimensions to form a new figure. Starting with an original figure, the process extends specific el ...

figures, called ''stellation to infinity''. However, he also suggested that strictly speaking they are not polyhedra because their construction does not conform to the usual definitions. Topologically it is considered to contain seven vertices. The three vertices considered at infinity (the

at infinity) correspond directionally to the three vertices of the

hemi-octahedron A hemi-octahedron is an abstract regular polyhedron, containing half the faces of a regular octahedron. It has 4 triangular faces, 6 edges, and 3 vertices. Its dual polyhedron is the hemicube. It can be realized as a projective polyhedron (a tes ...

, an abstract polyhedron. The other four vertices exist at alternate corners of a central cube (a

demicube In geometry, a tetrahedron (plural: tetrahedra or tetrahedrons), also known as a triangular Pyramid (geometry), pyramid, is a polyhedron composed of four triangular Face (geometry), faces, six straight Edge (geometry), edges, and four vertex ( ...

, in this case a

tetrahedron In geometry, a tetrahedron (plural: tetrahedra or tetrahedrons), also known as a triangular pyramid, is a polyhedron composed of four triangular faces, six straight edges, and four vertex corners. The tetrahedron is the simplest of all the o ...

References

* * (Page 101, Duals of the (nine) hemipolyhedra)

External links

*
Uniform polyhedra and dualsPaper modelGreat Stella: software used to create main image on this page
{{Nonconvex polyhedron navigator Uniform polyhedra Projective polyhedra