Questions tagged [polyhedra]

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96 votes
4 answers
5k views

A curious relation between angles and lengths of edges of a tetrahedron

Consider a Euclidean tetrahedron with lengths of edges $$ l_{12}, l_{13}, l_{14}, l_{23}, l_{24}, l_{34} $$ and dihedral angles $$ \alpha_{12}, \alpha_{13}, \alpha_{14}, \alpha_{23}, \alpha_{24}, \...
Daniil Rudenko's user avatar
48 votes
4 answers
3k views

How many ways can you inscribe five 24-cells in a 600-cell, hitting all its vertices?

You can inscribe five tetrahedra in a dodecahedron so that each vertex of the dodecahedron is the vertex of just one tetrahedron, as drawn here by Greg Egan: Warmup question: How many ways can you do ...
John Baez's user avatar
  • 21.3k
44 votes
1 answer
2k views

Pach's "Animals": What if the genus is positive?

Janos Pach asked a deep question 23 years ago (1988) that remains unsolved today: Can every animal—a topological ball in $\mathbb{R^3}$ composed of unit cubes glued face-to-face—be ...
Joseph O'Rourke's user avatar
37 votes
2 answers
2k views

Can the unsolvability of quintics be seen in the geometry of the icosahedron?

Q1. Is it possible to somehow "see" the unsolvability of quintic polynomials in the $A_5$ symmetries of the icosahedron (or dodecahedron)? Perhaps this is too vague a question. Q2. Are there ...
Joseph O'Rourke's user avatar
34 votes
4 answers
2k views

About the ratio of the areas of a convex pentagon and the inner pentagon made by the five diagonals

Question : Letting $S{^\prime}$ be the area of the inner pentagon made by the five diagonals of a convex pentagon whose area is $S$, then find the max of $\frac{S^\prime}{S}$.     ...
mathlove's user avatar
  • 4,727
32 votes
3 answers
4k views

Did ancient mathematicians know Euler's characteristic for convex polyhedra?

The formula $V-E+F=2$ is so simple that I can't believe that it was really Euler (or perhaps Descartes) who first observed it (I mean the formula itself in some generality, not necessarily a valid ...
Jochen Wengenroth's user avatar
28 votes
5 answers
2k views

Visibility of vertices in polyhedra

Suppose $P$ is a closed polyhedron in space (i.e. a union of polygons which is homeomorphic to $S^2$) and $X$ is an interior point of $P$. Is it true that $X$ can see at least one vertex of $P$? More ...
Mostafa's user avatar
  • 4,454
28 votes
1 answer
1k views

Are Minkowski sums of upward closed "convex" sets in $\mathbb{N}^k$ still "convex"? (WAS: Comparing mana costs in Magic: The Gathering)

This was originally a question about comparing mana costs in Magic: The Gathering, but it's turned into a question about Minkowski sums of upward-closed convex sets in $\mathbb{N}^k$. The original ...
Harry Altman's user avatar
  • 2,535
27 votes
3 answers
12k views

Which unfoldings of the hypercube tile 3-space: How to check for isometric space-fillers?

Recently Mark McClure constructed and displayed the 261 unfoldings of the hypercube (tesseract) in response to the question, "3D models of the unfoldings of the hypercube?": The first 9 unfoldings ...
Joseph O'Rourke's user avatar
26 votes
7 answers
3k views

What's that shape? Inferring a 3D shape from random shadows

Let $P$ be a bounded, simply connected region of $\mathbb{R}^3$. $P$ could be a polyhedron, or a smooth shape, or an arbitrary shape; I'll assume below that $P$ is a (non-degenerate, perhaps non-...
Joseph O'Rourke's user avatar
26 votes
2 answers
4k views

3D models of the unfoldings of the hypercube?

There are (apparently) 261 distinct unfoldings of the 4D hypercube, a.k.a., the tesseract, into 3D.1 These unfoldings (or "nets") are analogous to the 11 unfoldings of the 3D cube into the plane.2 ...
Joseph O'Rourke's user avatar
26 votes
4 answers
894 views

Why do some uniform polyhedra have a "conjugate" partner?

While browsing through a list of uniform polynohedra, I noticed that the square of the circumradius $R_m$ of the small snub icosicosidodecahedron ($U_{32}$) with unit edge lengths is, $$R_{32}^2 =\...
Tito Piezas III's user avatar
25 votes
3 answers
966 views

Does every convex polyhedron have a combinatorially isomorphic counterpart whose faces all have rational areas?

Does every convex polyhedron have a combinatorially isomorphic counterpart whose faces all have rational areas? Does every convex polyhedron have a combinatorially isomorphic counterpart whose edges ...
Liu Jin Tsai's user avatar
24 votes
1 answer
2k views

Building a genus-$n$ torus from cubes

I wonder if this has been studied: What is the fewest number of unit cubes from which one can build an $n$-toroid? The cubes must be glued face-to-face, and the boundary of the resulting object ...
Joseph O'Rourke's user avatar
24 votes
1 answer
1k views

Which unfoldings of the $d$-dimensional hypercube tile $(d{-}1)$-space?

A six year old question, Which unfoldings of the hypercube tile $3$-space?, has just been answered by Moritz Firsching: All $261$ unfoldings tile space! So now we know: For $d=2$, the unfolding of ...
Joseph O'Rourke's user avatar
20 votes
4 answers
906 views

The limit of edge-midpoint convex polyhedra

    Starting with a convex polyhedron $P_1 \subset \mathbb{R}^3$, replace that with $P_2$, the convex hull of the midpoints of the edges of $P_1$. Continuing this process, we obtain a ...
Joseph O'Rourke's user avatar
20 votes
1 answer
876 views

Tetrahedra passing through a hole

Assume a plane $P\subset\mathbb R^3$ has a hole $H$, and that the hole is topologically a compact disc. Being so, $P\setminus H$ does not separate the space. A regular tetrahedron $\sigma^3$ (of edge-...
mathlove's user avatar
  • 4,727
20 votes
1 answer
576 views

Update to Shephard's "Twenty Problems on Convex Polyhedra"

Forty-three years ago, Geoffrey Shephard published an influential list of open problems on convex polyhedra. Progress has been made on several of his problems, and perhaps some have been completely ...
Joseph O'Rourke's user avatar
19 votes
2 answers
1k views

Four Dimensional Origami Axioms

What are the axioms of four dimensional Origami. If standard Origami is considered three dimensional, it has points, lines, surfaces and folds to create a three dimensional form from the folded ...
Kent Palmer's user avatar
19 votes
2 answers
2k views

Is the tensor product of polyhedra a polyhedron?

Conventions: A polytope in a finite-dimensional $\mathbb R$-vector space $V$ is defined to be a convex hull of finitely many points in $V$. A polyhedron in a finite-dimensional $\mathbb R$-vector ...
darij grinberg's user avatar
18 votes
2 answers
953 views

"Derived" polyhedra and polytopes

The notion of derived polygon is natural and leads to remarkable convergence. Start with a polygon, and replace it by locating a point on every edge a fraction $\alpha$ between the two endpoints. For ...
Joseph O'Rourke's user avatar
18 votes
1 answer
654 views

Higher dimensional generalization of: Any quadrilateral tiles the plane?

Any (non-self-intersecting) quadrilateral tiles the plane.     (MathWorld image.) Q. What is the strongest known generalization of this statement to higher dimensions? I.e., $\mathbb{R}^d$ ...
Joseph O'Rourke's user avatar
17 votes
6 answers
2k views

On the number of Archimedean solids

Does anyone know of any good resources for the proof of the number of Archimedean solids (also known as semiregular polyhedra)? I have seen a couple of algebraic discussions but no true proof. Also, ...
Tyler Clark's user avatar
17 votes
2 answers
978 views

Placing points on a sphere so that no 3 lie close to the same plane

Motivation I am working with arbitrary parallelopiped tilings given by projection from a higher dimensional space. The collection of tiles, and some properties of the higher dimensional space are ...
Edmund Harriss's user avatar
17 votes
1 answer
699 views

Are all Dehn invariants achievable?

The Dehn invariant of a polyhedron is a vector in $\mathbb{R}\otimes_{\mathbb{Z}}\mathbb{R}/2\pi\mathbb{Z}$ defined as the sum over the edges of the polyhedron of the terms $\sum\ell_i\otimes\theta_i$ ...
David Eppstein's user avatar
16 votes
3 answers
1k views

If I have zeros at the vertices of an icosahedron, where should the poles go?

I've been tinkering with Newton's method applied to polynomials. E.g., Newton's method for $z^5 - 1 = 0$ gives: There aren't a lot of symmetric patterns of finite sets of points in the plane, so I ...
Geoffrey Irving's user avatar
14 votes
4 answers
2k views

Solid angles of a tetrahedron

This is a problem I have had for a while. For a triangle, the side opposite the largest angle has the largest length (and similarly for smallest angle). For a tetrahedron, the question is whether the ...
David Glickenstein's user avatar
14 votes
1 answer
294 views

The space of triangles that fit inside a given triangle, parametrized by edge lengths

Given a triangle T with sides a, b, and c, describe its "fitting set," the set of all points (x,y,z) in 3-dimensions for which a triangle with sides x, y, z exists that fits in T. Such a set lies in ...
John E. Wetzel's user avatar
14 votes
0 answers
379 views

Minimum number of distinct triangles for tesselating the sphere

Consider sequences of tesselations of the sphere. For instance, one such sequence might start with an icosahedron and proceed by subdividing each triangle face into 4 triangles and projecting the new ...
Arthur B's user avatar
  • 1,882
14 votes
0 answers
477 views

Does every convex polyhedron have a combinatorially isomorphic counterpart whose angles between edges are rational multiples of $\pi$?

After reading these very interesting questions, I came up with another one: Does every convex polyhedron have a combinatorially isomorphic counterpart whose angles between all pairs of edges meeting ...
Piotr Shatalin's user avatar
13 votes
2 answers
668 views

What was the Question that led Euler to his Investigations on Polyhedra?

The question that led Euler to his investigations on graphs is the well-known question related to the seven bridges of Königsberg, and that story is a must in every introduction to graph theory. ...
Manfred Weis's user avatar
  • 12.6k
13 votes
2 answers
3k views

How many vertices/edges/faces at most for a convex polyhedron that tiles space?

I wonder if this problem has already been examined before: Consider a convex polyhedron that tiles $\mathbb R^3$. What is the maximum of vertices/edges/faces that such a polyhedron can have? ...
Wolfgang's user avatar
  • 13.2k
13 votes
3 answers
657 views

Are there Monohedra with odd numbers of faces?

A monohedron is a convex polyhedron with all faces mutually congruent but with no other symmetry necessarily needed. So obviously, this is a wide class of polyhedra that includes the Platonic solids ...
Nandakumar R's user avatar
  • 5,473
13 votes
2 answers
815 views

Acute triangulation

Assume that $S$ is a finite 2-dimensional simplicial complex equipped with a metric $d$ such that each triangle is isometric to a plane triangle (so $(S,d)$ is a polyhedral space). Is it possible ...
Anton Petrunin's user avatar
13 votes
1 answer
3k views

What nets fold to polyhedra?

There is a classic (and open) problem asking whether every polyhedron can be unfolded to give a non-overlapping net. The converse problem has been studied asking which polygons can be folded in some ...
Edmund Harriss's user avatar
13 votes
0 answers
464 views

What are the known convex polyhedra with congruent faces?

Note: I originally asked this question on math.SE here, where I posted a bounty on the question but received no answers after a week despite apparent interest in the problem. I'm hoping MathOverflow ...
RavenclawPrefect's user avatar
13 votes
0 answers
405 views

Surface area of convex hull [duplicate]

Let Q be the convex hull of a non-convex polyhedron P. Is it true that the surface area of Q is not greater than the surface area of P?
Helen Cox's user avatar
  • 131
12 votes
12 answers
1k views

Database of integer edge lengths that can form tetrahedrons

Is there a collection of lists of six integer edge lengths that form a tetrahedron? Is there a computer program for generating such lists? I need to find approximately thirty such tetrahedral ...
Pierre Humbert Leblanc's user avatar
11 votes
2 answers
447 views

Dodecahedral rolling distance

Let a dodecahedron sit on the plane, with one face's vertices on an origin-centered unit circle. Fix the orientation so that the edge whose indices are $(1,2)$ is horizontal. For any $p \in \mathbb{R}...
Joseph O'Rourke's user avatar
11 votes
2 answers
1k views

Floating polyhedra with fair equilibria

Is there a homogeneous convex polyhedron which floats so that some subset (perhaps all) of its faces is distinguished as "up" (above the water line) in stable equilibrium, each face with equal ...
Joseph O'Rourke's user avatar
11 votes
2 answers
1k views

Which (semi)regular polyhedra are combinations of two others?

The convex combination of convex polytopes is a convex polytope. An example in $\mathbb{R}^2$ is that a regular octagon can be obtained as $\frac{1}{2} S + \frac{1}{2} S'$, where $S$ is a square and $...
Joseph O'Rourke's user avatar
11 votes
2 answers
488 views

Shortest morphing between shapes embedded in $\mathbb{R}^3$

I am interested in what in computer graphics is called morphing between two topologically equivalent shapes $S_0$ and $S_1$ in 3D. This is a continuous "path" of shapes $S_t$, each embedded and all ...
Joseph O'Rourke's user avatar
11 votes
1 answer
518 views

How to correctly state Cauchy's rigidity theorem?

Cauchy's rigidity theorem is usually cites briefly as Any two (convex, 3-dimensional) polyhedra with pairwise congruent faces are themselves congruent. As a more formal generalization to general ...
M. Winter's user avatar
  • 12.5k
11 votes
0 answers
294 views

How many ways to flatten a Tesseract onto a table?

A cube can be cut and flattened out onto a table in a way that the faces stay connected and none of them overlap. There are $384$ ways to make the cuts and $11$ distinct meshes emerge (see here). And ...
ryu576's user avatar
  • 171
11 votes
0 answers
723 views

Making a convex polyhedron with two sheets of paper

Suppose that we have two sheets of paper $S,T$ and that each of $S,T$ is in the shape of a convex quadrilateral. Also, suppose that the length of the perimeter of $S$ equals that of $T$. (Note that $S$...
mathlove's user avatar
  • 4,727
10 votes
2 answers
2k views

Great polyhedra: What does "great" signify?

Great Cubicuboctahedron Great Icosacronic Hexecontahedron Great Rhombic Triacontahedron Great Snub Icosidodecahedron Great Stellated Dodecahedron Great Triakis Octahedron ... There are many polyhedra ...
Joseph O'Rourke's user avatar
10 votes
2 answers
522 views

When does every point in a polytope lie along a chord between its edges?

Consider the 3-simplex, or tetrahedron, in 3-space. Regardless of the positions of the vertices, every point in the simplex lies on a chord between two non-adjacent edges of the simplex. Or, ...
UltraBlue06's user avatar
10 votes
3 answers
2k views

On maximal regular polyhedra inscribed in a regular polyhedron

Let T, C, O, D, or I be regular tetrahedron, cube, octahedron, dodecahedron, and icosahedron, respectively. Suppose that the outer polyhedron have edge-length 1. For example, it's easy to prove that ...
mathlove's user avatar
  • 4,727
10 votes
2 answers
381 views

What is Kept Fixed for Flexible Spheres

For background to this question much recent exciting related things, see this videotaped lecture by Alexander Gaifullin. Consider a triangulation $K$ of a two-dimensional sphere and consider maps ...
Gil Kalai's user avatar
  • 24.2k
10 votes
2 answers
317 views

Do maximal polyhedra have algebraic volume?

Is it possible to prove that for every $n > 3$ the maximal possible volume of a convex polyhedron having $n$ vertices inscribed in a sphere of unit radius is an algebraic number? Update: What can ...
Vladimir Reshetnikov's user avatar

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