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 ...

, an edge is a particular type of

line segment In geometry, a line segment is a part of a line (mathematics), straight line that is bounded by two distinct endpoints (its extreme points), and contains every Point (geometry), point on the line that is between its endpoints. It is a special c ...

joining two vertices in a

polygon In geometry, a polygon () is a plane figure made up of line segments connected to form a closed polygonal chain. The segments of a closed polygonal chain are called its '' edges'' or ''sides''. The points where two edges meet are the polygon ...

polyhedron In geometry, a polyhedron (: polyhedra or polyhedrons; ) is a three-dimensional figure with flat polygonal Face (geometry), faces, straight Edge (geometry), edges and sharp corners or Vertex (geometry), vertices. The term "polyhedron" may refer ...

, or higher-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 ...

. In a polygon, an edge is a line segment on the boundary, and is often called a polygon side. In a polyhedron or more generally a polytope, an edge is a line segment where two faces (or polyhedron sides) meet. A segment joining two vertices while passing through the interior or exterior is not an edge but instead is called a

diagonal In geometry, a diagonal is a line segment joining two vertices of a polygon or polyhedron, when those vertices are not on the same edge. Informally, any sloping line is called diagonal. The word ''diagonal'' derives from the ancient Greek � ...

. An ''edge'' may also be an infinite line separating two

half-plane In mathematics, the upper half-plane, is the set of points in the Cartesian plane with The lower half-plane is the set of points with instead. Arbitrary oriented half-planes can be obtained via a planar rotation. Half-planes are an example ...

s. The ''sides'' of a

plane angle In Euclidean geometry, an angle can refer to a number of concepts relating to the intersection of two straight Line (geometry), lines at a Point (geometry), point. Formally, an angle is a figure lying in a Euclidean plane, plane formed by two R ...

are semi-infinite half-lines (or rays).

Relation to edges in graphs

graph theory In mathematics and computer science, graph theory is the study of ''graph (discrete mathematics), graphs'', which are mathematical structures used to model pairwise relations between objects. A graph in this context is made up of ''Vertex (graph ...

, an edge is an abstract object connecting two graph vertices, unlike polygon and polyhedron edges which have a concrete geometric representation as a line segment. However, any polyhedron can be represented by its

skeleton A skeleton is the structural frame that supports the body of most animals. There are several types of skeletons, including the exoskeleton, which is a rigid outer shell that holds up an organism's shape; the endoskeleton, a rigid internal fra ...

or edge-skeleton, a graph whose vertices are the geometric vertices of the polyhedron and whose edges correspond to the geometric edges. Conversely, the graphs that are skeletons of three-dimensional polyhedra can be characterized by

Steinitz's theorem In polyhedral combinatorics, a branch of mathematics, Steinitz's theorem is a characterization of the undirected graphs formed by the edges and vertices of three-dimensional convex polyhedron, convex polyhedra: they are exactly the vertex connect ...

as being exactly the 3-vertex-connected

planar graph In graph theory, a planar graph is a graph (discrete mathematics), graph that can be graph embedding, embedded in the plane (geometry), plane, i.e., it can be drawn on the plane in such a way that its edges intersect only at their endpoints. ...

Number of edges in a polyhedron

Any

convex polyhedron In geometry, a polyhedron (: polyhedra or polyhedrons; ) is a three-dimensional figure with flat polygonal faces, straight edges and sharp corners or vertices. The term "polyhedron" may refer either to a solid figure or to its boundary su ...

's surface has

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's ...

V - E + F = 2,

where ''V'' is the number of vertices, ''E'' is the number of edges, and ''F'' is the number of faces. This equation is known as

Euler's polyhedron formula 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' ...

. Thus the number of edges is 2 less than the sum of the numbers of vertices and faces. For example, a

cube A cube or regular hexahedron is a three-dimensional space, three-dimensional solid object in geometry, which is bounded by six congruent square (geometry), square faces, a type of polyhedron. It has twelve congruent edges and eight vertices. It i ...

has 8 vertices and 6 faces, and hence 12 edges.

Incidences with other faces

In a polygon, two edges meet at each vertex; more generally, by Balinski's theorem, at least ''d'' edges meet at every vertex of a ''d''-dimensional convex polytope. Similarly, in a polyhedron, exactly two two-dimensional faces meet at every edge, while in higher dimensional polytopes three or more two-dimensional faces meet at every edge.

Alternative terminology

In the theory of high-dimensional

convex polytope A convex polytope is a special case of a polytope, having the additional property that it is also a convex set contained in the n-dimensional Euclidean space \mathbb^n. Most texts. use the term "polytope" for a bounded convex polytope, and the wo ...

s, a ''

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 ...

'' or ''side'' of a ''d''-dimensional

is one of its (''d'' − 1)-dimensional features, a ''

ridge A ridge is a long, narrow, elevated geomorphologic landform, structural feature, or a combination of both separated from the surrounding terrain by steep sides. The sides of a ridge slope away from a narrow top, the crest or ridgecrest, wi ...

'' is a (''d'' − 2)-dimensional feature, and a '' peak'' is a (''d'' − 3)-dimensional feature. Thus, the edges of a polygon are its facets, the edges of a 3-dimensional

are its ridges, and the edges of a 4-dimensional polytope are its peaks..

References

External links