Questions tagged [polyhedra]

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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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
5 votes
1 answer
311 views

Are the polyhedral cones the only examples of cones that remains closed when they are added to vector subspaces?

Let $C \subset \mathbb{R}^{n}$ be a closed convex cone. If one wants to know whether the linear map $T:\mathbb{R}^{n} \to\mathbb{R}^m$ sends the closed set $C$ to another closed one, $T(C)$, it is ...
R. W. Prado's user avatar
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
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
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
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
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
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
10 votes
1 answer
609 views

Polyhedron not circumscribed about a sphere

Let $P$ be a polyhedron whose faces are colored black and white so that there are more black faces and no two black faces are adjacent. Show that $P$ is not circumscribed about a sphere. My teacher ...
shadow10's user avatar
  • 1,090
10 votes
1 answer
541 views

The intersection of two $l_1$ balls

Let $B_1$ and $B_2$ be two balls in $\mathbb{R}^n$ with respect to the $l_1$ norm that have different radii and different centers. Is there an upper bound for the number of vertices that $B_1\cap B_2$...
Jennifer Gao's user avatar
10 votes
1 answer
423 views

Complexity of the union of randomly rotated unit cubes

It is a remarkable fact that the union of congrent cubes has only at most near-quadratic combinatorial complexity, $O^*(n^2)$ for $n$ cubes, known to be almost tight. This contrasts with the union of ...
Joseph O'Rourke's user avatar
10 votes
1 answer
3k views

Computionally efficient vertex enumeration for (convex) polytopes

Let $P \subseteq \mathbb{R}^d$ be an $\mathcal{H}$-polytope. The vertex enumeration problem asks for the set of vertices $V$ of $P$. Theoretically, the vertex enumeration problem for $P$ can be ...
Christopher's user avatar
9 votes
1 answer
276 views

Thinnest covering of the plane by regular pentagons

Q. Is it known what is the thinnest covering of the infinite plane by regular pentagons? By covering I mean every point of the plane is covered. By thinnest I mean the proportion of the plane covered ...
Joseph O'Rourke's user avatar
9 votes
2 answers
313 views

Are there centrally-symmetric self-dual polytopes in dimension $d> 4$?

A convex polytope $P\subset\Bbb R^d$ is centrally symmetric if $-P=P$. It is self-dual (or better, self-polar?) if its polar dual $P^\circ$ is congruent to $P$, that is, there is a map $X\in\mathrm O(\...
M. Winter's user avatar
  • 12.5k
9 votes
0 answers
530 views

Maximum volume convex body coverable by a unit square

Suppose you are given a single unit square, and you are permitted to cut it into $k$ (connected) pieces (where $k=1$ means just the square). Your task is to construct the largest volume convex body ...
Joseph O'Rourke's user avatar
9 votes
1 answer
407 views

The $32$-deg polynomial for the tetrahedron inscribed in the icosahedron?

This MO answer discusses this table involving the maximal side lengths of the five Platonic solids $T,C,O,D,I$ inscribed in the other solids, This table is also found in Moritz Firsching's paper. I ...
Tito Piezas III's user avatar
7 votes
1 answer
294 views

Embedding of flat surfaces

Let $S$ be a orientable compact surface with a flat euclidean structure with conical singularities (cf. [T] for instance). Let also $\mathcal P$ be a polyhedral euclidean decomposition of $S$ (with ...
Lucien's user avatar
  • 828
7 votes
2 answers
377 views

Convex deltahedra in higher dimensions

There are eight convex polyhedra whose faces are equilateral triangles, so-called deltahedra:        (Image from here) Q. Have the equivalent higher-dimensional ...
Joseph O'Rourke's user avatar
7 votes
3 answers
401 views

Average caliper diameter (mean width) of a polyhedron

Define the caliper diameter of a polyhedron as follows: Let $P_1$ and $P_2$ be two planes both of which are parallel to the x axis such that the perpendicular distance between $P_1$ and $P_2$ is the ...
JDoe2's user avatar
  • 101
6 votes
1 answer
252 views

Can a dodecahedron be deformed into a great stellated dodecahedron?

Can a convex regular dodecahedron be deformed into a great stellated dodecahedron while keeping all pentagons planar and all edges of nonzero length the whole time?
Daniel Sebald's user avatar
5 votes
3 answers
655 views

Alexandrov's generalization of Cauchy's rigidity theorem

Wikipedia states that A. D. Alexandrov generalized Cauchy's rigidity theorem for polyhedra to higher dimensions. The relevant statement in the article is not linked to any source. The sources at the ...
M. Winter's user avatar
  • 12.5k
5 votes
1 answer
237 views

Convex polyhedra with non-congruent faces

Question: Are there convex polyhedra wherein all faces are convex polygons with same area and perimeter and no two faces are mutually congruent? Remarks: If the answer to above is "no", then,...
Nandakumar R's user avatar
  • 5,451
4 votes
2 answers
382 views

Construct polygon/polyhedron containing all points not externally visible w.r.t given polygon/polyhedron?

Is there an algorithm to construct a polyhedron containing all points in space for which there exists no ray to infinite not intersecting a given polyhedron? In 2D, we could consider polygons. For ...
Alec Jacobson's user avatar
4 votes
1 answer
123 views

Any visualization software for the intrinsic metric of a convex polyhedron?

I'd like to find a visual simulation of what it would be like to 'live' in a polyhedron with the intrinsic, piecewise-Euclidean length metric. Of course, to make it easier to visualize, I'd prefer to ...
Brian Rushton's user avatar
3 votes
2 answers
164 views

Bounding distance to a polyhedron

I need to estimate the Euclidean distance from a point $x\in {\mathbb R}^m$ to a polyhedron $P\subset {\mathbb R}^m$ in terms of distances from $x$ to the tangent hyperplanes which define $P$. By a ...
Anton Kapustin's user avatar
2 votes
0 answers
90 views

Dodecahedron deformation II

(Follow-up to this question) Can a dodecahedron be deformed into a great stellated dodecahedron while maintaining the number of dimensions each element occupies?
Daniel Sebald's user avatar
2 votes
1 answer
894 views

Does the Lebesgue Differentiation Theorem hold for regular polytopes?

Lebesgue's differentiation theorem states that if $x$ is a point in $\mathbb{R}^n$ and $f:\mathbb{R}^n\rightarrow\mathbb{R}$ is a Lebesgue integrable function, then the limit of $\frac{\int_B f d\...
Keshav Srinivasan's user avatar
2 votes
1 answer
207 views

Constructing a Polyhedron given areas of its faces

I want to visualize a set of data as a polyhedron in 3d space. Imagine set A includes areas of such polyhedron's faces. I assume the first step is to check if there exist a polyehdron by making sure ...
user2367663's user avatar
2 votes
3 answers
2k views

non-convex Polytope definition

I have a simple question. I read that given a vector space $N_{\mathbb{R}}$ over $\mathbb{R}$, we can define a convex polytope in the following way: $$P:= \Big\{ \sum_{u\in S} \mu_u u \,\Big| \, \...
Joaquín Moraga's user avatar
1 vote
1 answer
524 views

Convex polyhedron and its Gauß-curvature [closed]

I have asked this question on MathSE and no one could give me an answer. So I'll post my question here. What I am trying to prove: A convex polyhedron has positive Gauß-Curvature at every vertex. ...
aGer's user avatar
  • 129