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For $d=3$, vertex coordinates of a regular simplex have a simple expression since vertices correspond to four vertices of a cube. Is there a simple expression for higher dimensions? In particular I'm interested in $d=2^n-1$, integer $n$. Edit: by coordinates I mean points in $\mathbb{R}^d$. Every $d$-simplex has a simple expression for coordinates in $\mathbb{R}^{d+1}$, as Mariano shows below |
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It is known that there is a regular simplex of side length $\sqrt{(d+1)/2}$ whose vertices are vertices of the cube $[-1,1]^d$ in $\Bbb{R}^d$ if and only if there exists a Hadamard matrix of order $d+1$; this is a square matrix of $\pm 1$-entries with pairwise orthogonal columns. In particular, there exist Hadamard matrices of order $2^n$, one of which can be constructed using the recursive Sylvester's construction as explained on the above linked wikipedia page: Let $H_0=[1]$ and $H_{n+1}=\left[\array{H_n & H_n \\ H_n & -H_n}\right].$ Note that the first column of $H_n$ consists only of ones. Delete it to obtain $2^n$ row vectors in $\Bbb{R}^{2^n-1}$. These are the coordinates of a regular simplex. |
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The $d$ points $(0,\dots,0,1,0,\dots,0)$ are the vertices of a regular $(d-1)$-simplex. If you want it to be centered at the origin, just substract their barycenter from them. |
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One interesting problem is to determine the $n$ such that there is a regular simplex in $\mathbb{R}^n$ with rational/integer coordinates. This is a well-known old problem which I discussed in this 1998 usenet thread, and is a nice application of the Hasse-Minowski theory of rational quadratic forms. The answer is yes iff $n+1$ is the sum of one, two, four or eight odd squares. |
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