In geometry, a skew apeirohedron is an infinite skew polyhedron consisting of nonplanar faces or nonplanar vertex figures, allowing the figure to extend indefinitely without folding round to form a closed surface.
Skew apeirohedra have also been called polyhedral sponges.
Many are directly related to a convex uniform honeycomb, being the polygonal surface of a honeycomb with some of the cells removed. Characteristically, an infinite skew polyhedron divides 3-dimensional space into two halves. If one half is thought of as solid the figure is sometimes called a partial honeycomb.
According to Coxeter, in 1926 John Flinders Petrie generalized the concept of regular skew polygons (nonplanar polygons) to regular skew polyhedra (apeirohedra). [1]
Coxeter and Petrie found three of these that filled 3-space:
Regular skew apeirohedra | ||
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{4,6|4} mucube | {6,4|4} muoctahedron | {6,6|3} mutetrahedron |
There also exist chiral skew apeirohedra of types {4,6}, {6,4}, and {6,6}. These skew apeirohedra are vertex-transitive, edge-transitive, and face-transitive, but not mirror symmetric ( Schulte 2004 ).
Beyond Euclidean 3-space, in 1967 C. W. L. Garner published a set of 31 regular skew polyhedra in hyperbolic 3-space. [2]
J. Richard Gott in 1967 published a larger set of seven infinite skew polyhedra which he called regular pseudopolyhedrons, including the three from Coxeter as {4,6}, {6,4}, and {6,6} and four new ones: {5,5}, {4,5}, {3,8}, {3,10}. [3] [4]
Gott relaxed the definition of regularity to allow his new figures. Where Coxeter and Petrie had required that the vertices be symmetrical, Gott required only that they be congruent. Thus, Gott's new examples are not regular by Coxeter and Petrie's definition.
Gott called the full set of regular polyhedra, regular tilings, and regular pseudopolyhedra as regular generalized polyhedra, representable by a {p,q} Schläfli symbol, with by p-gonal faces, q around each vertex. However neither the term "pseudopolyhedron" nor Gott's definition of regularity have achieved wide usage.
Crystallographer A.F. Wells in 1960's also published a list of skew apeirohedra. Melinda Green published many more in 1998.
{p,q} | Cells around a vertex | Vertex faces | Larger pattern | Space group | Related H2 orbifold notation | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Cubic space group | Coxeter notation | Fibrifold notation | |||||
{4,5} | 3 cubes | Im3m | [[4,3,4]] | 8°:2 | *4222 | ||
{4,5} | 1 truncated octahedron 2 hexagonal prisms | I3 | [[4,3+,4]] | 8°:2 | 2*42 | ||
{3,7} | 1 octahedron 1 icosahedron | Fd3 | [[3[4]]]+ | 2°− | 3222 | ||
{3,8} | 2 snub cubes | Fm3m | [4,(3,4)+] | 2−− | 32* | ||
{3,9} | 1 tetrahedron 3 octahedra | Fd3m | [[3[4]]] | 2+:2 | 2*32 | ||
{3,9} | 1 icosahedron 2 octahedra | I3 | [[4,3+,4]] | 8°:2 | 22*2 | ||
{3,12} | 5 octahedra | Im3m | [[4,3,4]] | 8°:2 | 2*32 |
Prismatic form: {4,5} |
There are two prismatic forms:
{3,10} is also formed from parallel planes of triangular tilings, with alternating octahedral holes going both ways.
{5,5} is composed of 3 coplanar pentagons around a vertex and two perpendicular pentagons filling the gap.
Gott also acknowledged that there are other periodic forms of the regular planar tessellations. Both the square tiling {4,4} and triangular tiling {3,6} can be curved into approximating infinite cylinders in 3-space.
He wrote some theorems:
There are many other uniform (vertex-transitive) skew apeirohedra. Wachmann, Burt and Kleinmann (1974) discovered many examples but it is not known whether their list is complete.
A few are illustrated here. They can be named by their vertex configuration, although it is not a unique designation for skew forms.
4.4.6.6 | 6.6.8.8 | |
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Related to cantitruncated cubic honeycomb, | Related to runcicantic cubic honeycomb, | |
4.4.4.6 | 4.8.4.8 | 3.3.3.3.3.3.3 |
Related to the omnitruncated cubic honeycomb: | ||
4.4.4.6 | 4.4.4.8 | 3.4.4.4.4 |
Related to the runcitruncated cubic honeycomb. |
4.4.4.4.4 | 4.4.4.6 |
---|---|
Related to | Related to |
Others can be constructed as augmented chains of polyhedra:
| |
Uniform Boerdijk–Coxeter helix | Stacks of cubes |
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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 n as an n-dimensional polytope or n-polytope. For example, a two-dimensional polygon is a 2-polytope and a three-dimensional polyhedron is a 3-polytope. In this context, "flat sides" means that the sides of a (k + 1)-polytope consist of k-polytopes that may have (k – 1)-polytopes in common.
In geometry, a polyhedral compound is a figure that is composed of several polyhedra sharing a common centre. They are the three-dimensional analogs of polygonal compounds such as the hexagram.
In geometry, a 4-polytope is a four-dimensional polytope. It is a connected and closed figure, composed of lower-dimensional polytopal elements: vertices, edges, faces (polygons), and cells (polyhedra). Each face is shared by exactly two cells. The 4-polytopes were discovered by the Swiss mathematician Ludwig Schläfli before 1853.
A regular polyhedron is a polyhedron whose symmetry group acts transitively on its flags. A regular polyhedron is highly symmetrical, being all of edge-transitive, vertex-transitive and face-transitive. In classical contexts, many different equivalent definitions are used; a common one is that the faces are congruent regular polygons which are assembled in the same way around each vertex.
In geometry, the Schläfli symbol is a notation of the form that defines regular polytopes and tessellations.
In mathematics, a regular polytope is a polytope whose symmetry group acts transitively on its flags, thus giving it the highest degree of symmetry. In particular, all its elements or j-faces — cells, faces and so on — are also transitive on the symmetries of the polytope, and are themselves regular polytopes of dimension j≤ n.
In geometry, a polytope or a tiling is isogonal or vertex-transitive if all its vertices are equivalent under the symmetries of the figure. This implies that each vertex is surrounded by the same kinds of face in the same or reverse order, and with the same angles between corresponding faces.
In geometry, a vertex figure, broadly speaking, is the figure exposed when a corner of a polyhedron or polytope is sliced off.
In geometry, a honeycomb is a space filling or close packing of polyhedral or higher-dimensional cells, so that there are no gaps. It is an example of the more general mathematical tiling or tessellation in any number of dimensions. Its dimension can be clarified as n-honeycomb for a honeycomb of n-dimensional space.
In geometry, a skew polygon is a polygon whose vertices are not all coplanar. Skew polygons must have at least four vertices. The interior surface of such a polygon is not uniquely defined.
In geometry, a uniform polytope of dimension three or higher is a vertex-transitive polytope bounded by uniform facets. The uniform polytopes in two dimensions are the regular polygons.
In geometry, a quasiregular polyhedron is a uniform polyhedron that has exactly two kinds of regular faces, which alternate around each vertex. They are vertex-transitive and edge-transitive, hence a step closer to regular polyhedra than the semiregular, which are merely vertex-transitive.
In geometry, a Petrie polygon for a regular polytope of n dimensions is a skew polygon in which every n – 1 consecutive sides belongs to one of the facets. The Petrie polygon of a regular polygon is the regular polygon itself; that of a regular polyhedron is a skew polygon such that every two consecutive sides belongs to one of the faces. Petrie polygons are named for mathematician John Flinders Petrie.
In geometry, the regular skew polyhedra are generalizations to the set of regular polyhedra which include the possibility of nonplanar faces or vertex figures. Coxeter looked at skew vertex figures which created new 4-dimensional regular polyhedra, and much later Branko Grünbaum looked at regular skew faces.
In hyperbolic geometry, a uniform honeycomb in hyperbolic space is a uniform tessellation of uniform polyhedral cells. In 3-dimensional hyperbolic space there are nine Coxeter group families of compact convex uniform honeycombs, generated as Wythoff constructions, and represented by permutations of rings of the Coxeter diagrams for each family.
In geometry, a uniform honeycomb or uniform tessellation or infinite uniform polytope, is a vertex-transitive honeycomb made from uniform polytope facets. All of its vertices are identical and there is the same combination and arrangement of faces at each vertex. Its dimension can be clarified as n-honeycomb for an n-dimensional honeycomb.
In geometry, the order-4 hexagonal tiling is a regular tiling of the hyperbolic plane. It has Schläfli symbol of {6,4}.
In geometry, the rhombitetrahexagonal tiling is a uniform tiling of the hyperbolic plane. It has Schläfli symbol of rr{6,4}. It can be seen as constructed as a rectified tetrahexagonal tiling, r{6,4}, as well as an expanded order-4 hexagonal tiling or expanded order-6 square tiling.
In geometry, a regular skew apeirohedron is an infinite regular skew polyhedron, with either skew regular faces or skew regular vertex figures.