Tesseract

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Tesseract
8-cell
(4-cube)
8-cell-simple.gif
Type Convex regular 4-polytope
Schläfli symbol {4,3,3}
t0,3{4,3,2} or {4,3}×{ }
t0,2{4,2,4} or {4}×{4}
t0,2,3{4,2,2} or {4}×{ }×{ }
t0,1,2,3{2,2,2} or { }×{ }×{ }×{ }
Coxeter diagram CDel node 1.pngCDel 4.pngCDel node.pngCDel 3.pngCDel node.pngCDel 3.pngCDel node.png
CDel node 1.pngCDel 4.pngCDel node.pngCDel 3.pngCDel node.pngCDel 2.pngCDel node 1.png
CDel node 1.pngCDel 4.pngCDel node.pngCDel 2.pngCDel node 1.pngCDel 4.pngCDel node.png
CDel node 1.pngCDel 4.pngCDel node.pngCDel 2.pngCDel node 1.pngCDel 2.pngCDel node 1.png
CDel node 1.pngCDel 2.pngCDel node 1.pngCDel 2.pngCDel node 1.pngCDel 2.pngCDel node 1.png
Cells 8 {4,3} Hexahedron.png
Faces 24 {4}
Edges 32
Vertices 16
Vertex figure 8-cell verf.svg
Tetrahedron
Petrie polygon octagon
Coxeter group B4, [3,3,4]
Dual 16-cell
Properties convex, isogonal, isotoxal, isohedral, Hanner polytope
Uniform index 10
The Dali cross, a net of a tesseract 8-cell net.png
The Dalí cross, a net of a tesseract
The tesseract can be unfolded into eight cubes into 3D space, just as the cube can be unfolded into six squares into 2D space. Net of tesseract.gif
The tesseract can be unfolded into eight cubes into 3D space, just as the cube can be unfolded into six squares into 2D space.

In geometry, a tesseract or 4-cube is a four-dimensional hypercube, analogous to a two-dimensional square and a three-dimensional cube. [1] Just as the perimeter of the square consists of four edges and the surface of the cube consists of six square faces, the hypersurface of the tesseract consists of eight cubical cells, meeting at right angles. The tesseract is one of the six convex regular 4-polytopes.

Contents

The tesseract is also called an 8-cell, C8, (regular) octachoron, or cubic prism. It is the four-dimensional measure polytope, taken as a unit for hypervolume. [2] Coxeter labels it the γ4 polytope. [3] The term hypercube without a dimension reference is frequently treated as a synonym for this specific polytope.

The Oxford English Dictionary traces the word tesseract to Charles Howard Hinton's 1888 book A New Era of Thought . The term derives from the Greek téssara ( τέσσαρα 'four') and aktís ( ἀκτίς 'ray'), referring to the four edges from each vertex to other vertices. Hinton originally spelled the word as tessaract. [4]

Geometry

As a regular polytope with three cubes folded together around every edge, it has Schläfli symbol {4,3,3} with hyperoctahedral symmetry of order 384. Constructed as a 4D hyperprism made of two parallel cubes, it can be named as a composite Schläfli symbol {4,3} × { }, with symmetry order 96. As a 4-4 duoprism, a Cartesian product of two squares, it can be named by a composite Schläfli symbol {4}×{4}, with symmetry order 64. As an orthotope it can be represented by composite Schläfli symbol { } × { } × { } × { } or { }4, with symmetry order 16.

Since each vertex of a tesseract is adjacent to four edges, the vertex figure of the tesseract is a regular tetrahedron. The dual polytope of the tesseract is the 16-cell with Schläfli symbol {3,3,4}, with which it can be combined to form the compound of tesseract and 16-cell.

Each edge of a regular tesseract is of the same length. This is of interest when using tesseracts as the basis for a network topology to link multiple processors in parallel computing: the distance between two nodes is at most 4 and there are many different paths to allow weight balancing.

A tesseract is bounded by eight three-dimensional hyperplanes. Each pair of non-parallel hyperplanes intersects to form 24 square faces. Three cubes and three squares intersect at each edge. There are four cubes, six squares, and four edges meeting at every vertex. All in all, a tesseract consists of 8 cubes, 24 squares, 32 edges, and 16 vertices.

Coordinates

A unit tesseract has side length 1, and is typically taken as the basic unit for hypervolume in 4-dimensional space. The unit tesseract in a Cartesian coordinate system for 4-dimensional space has two opposite vertices at coordinates [0, 0, 0, 0] and [1, 1, 1, 1], and other vertices with coordinates at all possible combinations of 0s and 1s. It is the Cartesian product of the closed unit interval [0, 1] in each axis.

Sometimes a unit tesseract is centered at the origin, so that its coordinates are the more symmetrical This is the Cartesian product of the closed interval in each axis.

Another commonly convenient tesseract is the Cartesian product of the closed interval [1, 1] in each axis, with vertices at coordinates (±1, ±1, ±1, ±1). This tesseract has side length 2 and hypervolume 24 = 16.

Net

An unfolding of a polytope is called a net. There are 261 distinct nets of the tesseract. [5] The unfoldings of the tesseract can be counted by mapping the nets to paired trees (a tree together with a perfect matching in its complement).

Each of the 261 nets can tile 3-space. [6]

Construction

An animation of the shifting in dimensions From Point to Tesseract (Looped Version).gif
An animation of the shifting in dimensions

The construction of hypercubes can be imagined the following way:

Dimension levels.svg

The 8 cells of the tesseract may be regarded (three different ways) as two interlocked rings of four cubes. [7]

The tesseract can be decomposed into smaller 4-polytopes. It is the convex hull of the compound of two demitesseracts (16-cells). It can also be triangulated into 4-dimensional simplices (irregular 5-cells) that share their vertices with the tesseract. It is known that there are 92487256 such triangulations [8] and that the fewest 4-dimensional simplices in any of them is 16. [9]

The dissection of the tesseract into instances of its characteristic simplex (a particular orthoscheme with Coxeter diagram CDel node.pngCDel 4.pngCDel node.pngCDel 3.pngCDel node.pngCDel 3.pngCDel node.png) is the most basic direct construction of the tesseract possible. The characteristic 5-cell of the 4-cube is a fundamental region of the tesseract's defining symmetry group, the group which generates the B4 polytopes. The tesseract's characteristic simplex directly generates the tesseract through the actions of the group, by reflecting itself in its own bounding facets (its mirror walls).

Radial equilateral symmetry

The radius of a hypersphere circumscribed about a regular polytope is the distance from the polytope's center to one of the vertices, and for the tesseract this radius is equal to its edge length; the diameter of the sphere, the length of the diagonal between opposite vertices of the tesseract, is twice the edge length. Only a few uniform polytopes have this property, including the four-dimensional tesseract and 24-cell, the three-dimensional cuboctahedron, and the two-dimensional hexagon. In particular, the tesseract is the only hypercube (other than a zero-dimensional point) that is radially equilateral. The longest vertex-to-vertex diagonal of an -dimensional hypercube of unit edge length is which for the square is for the cube is and only for the tesseract is edge lengths.

An axis-aligned tesseract inscribed in a unit-radius 3-sphere has vertices with coordinates

Properties

Proof without words that a hypercube graph is non-planar using Kuratowski's or Wagner's theorems and finding either K5 (top) or K3,3 (bottom) subgraphs Tesseract graph nonplanar visual proof.svg
Proof without words that a hypercube graph is non-planar using Kuratowski's or Wagner's theorems and finding either K5 (top) or K3,3 (bottom) subgraphs

For a tesseract with side length s:

As a configuration

This configuration matrix represents the tesseract. The rows and columns correspond to vertices, edges, faces, and cells. The diagonal numbers say how many of each element occur in the whole tesseract. The diagonal reduces to the f-vector (16,32,24,8).

The nondiagonal numbers say how many of the column's element occur in or at the row's element. [10] For example, the 2 in the first column of the second row indicates that there are 2 vertices in (i.e., at the extremes of) each edge; the 4 in the second column of the first row indicates that 4 edges meet at each vertex.

The bottom row defines they facets, here cubes, have f-vector (8,12,6). The next row left of diagonal is ridge elements (facet of cube), here a square, (4,4).

The upper row is the f-vector of the vertex figure, here tetrahedra, (4,6,4). The next row is vertex figure ridge, here a triangle, (3,3).

Projections

It is possible to project tesseracts into three- and two-dimensional spaces, similarly to projecting a cube into two-dimensional space.

Parallel projection envelopes of the tesseract (each cell is drawn with different color faces, inverted cells are undrawn) Orthogonal projection envelopes tesseract.png
Parallel projection envelopes of the tesseract (each cell is drawn with different color faces, inverted cells are undrawn)
The rhombic dodecahedron forms the convex hull of the tesseract's vertex-first parallel-projection. The number of vertices in the layers of this projection is 1 4 6 4 1--the fourth row in Pascal's triangle. Hypercubeorder binary.svg
The rhombic dodecahedron forms the convex hull of the tesseract's vertex-first parallel-projection. The number of vertices in the layers of this projection is 1 4 6 4 1—the fourth row in Pascal's triangle.

The cell-first parallel projection of the tesseract into three-dimensional space has a cubical envelope. The nearest and farthest cells are projected onto the cube, and the remaining six cells are projected onto the six square faces of the cube.

The face-first parallel projection of the tesseract into three-dimensional space has a cuboidal envelope. Two pairs of cells project to the upper and lower halves of this envelope, and the four remaining cells project to the side faces.

The edge-first parallel projection of the tesseract into three-dimensional space has an envelope in the shape of a hexagonal prism. Six cells project onto rhombic prisms, which are laid out in the hexagonal prism in a way analogous to how the faces of the 3D cube project onto six rhombs in a hexagonal envelope under vertex-first projection. The two remaining cells project onto the prism bases.

The vertex-first parallel projection of the tesseract into three-dimensional space has a rhombic dodecahedral envelope. Two vertices of the tesseract are projected to the origin. There are exactly two ways of dissecting a rhombic dodecahedron into four congruent rhombohedra, giving a total of eight possible rhombohedra, each a projected cube of the tesseract. This projection is also the one with maximal volume. One set of projection vectors are u = (1,1,−1,−1), v = (−1,1,−1,1), w = (1,−1,−1,1).

Animation showing each individual cube within the B4 Coxeter plane projection of the tesseract Orthogonal Tesseract Gif.gif
Animation showing each individual cube within the B4 Coxeter plane projection of the tesseract
Orthographic projections
Coxeter plane B4B4 --> A3A3
Graph 4-cube t0.svg 4-4 duoprism-isotoxal.svg 4-cube t0 A3.svg
Dihedral symmetry [8][4][4]
Coxeter planeOtherB3 / D4 / A2B2 / D3
Graph 4-cube column graph.svg 4-cube t0 B3.svg 4-cube t0 B2.svg
Dihedral symmetry[2][6][4]
Tesseract With Hidden Dash Lines.jpg
Tesseract Without Hidden Lines.jpg
Orthographic projection Coxeter plane B4 graph with hidden lines as dash lines, and the tesseract without hidden lines.
8-cell.gif
A 3D projection of a tesseract performing a simple rotation about a plane in 4-dimensional space. The plane bisects the figure from front-left to back-right and top to bottom.
8-cell-orig.gif
A 3D projection of a tesseract performing a double rotation about two orthogonal planes in 4-dimensional space.
3D Projection of three tesseracts with and without faces
Tesseract-perspective-vertex-first-PSPclarify.png
Perspective with hidden volume elimination. The red corner is the nearest in 4D and has 4 cubical cells meeting around it.
Tesseract tetrahedron shadow matrices.svg

The tetrahedron forms the convex hull of the tesseract's vertex-centered central projection. Four of 8 cubic cells are shown. The 16th vertex is projected to infinity and the four edges to it are not shown.

Stereographic polytope 8cell.png
Stereographic projection

(Edges are projected onto the 3-sphere)

3D stereographic projection tesseract.PNG
Stereoscopic 3D projection of a tesseract (parallel view)
Hypercube Disarmed.PNG
Stereoscopic 3D Disarmed Hypercube

Tessellation

The tesseract, like all hypercubes, tessellates Euclidean space. The self-dual tesseractic honeycomb consisting of 4 tesseracts around each face has Schläfli symbol {4,3,3,4}. Hence, the tesseract has a dihedral angle of 90°. [11]

The tesseract's radial equilateral symmetry makes its tessellation the unique regular body-centered cubic lattice of equal-sized spheres, in any number of dimensions.

The tesseract is 4th in a series of hypercube:

Petrie polygon orthographic projections
1-simplex t0.svg 2-cube.svg 3-cube graph.svg 4-cube graph.svg 5-cube graph.svg 6-cube graph.svg 7-cube graph.svg 8-cube.svg 9-cube.svg 10-cube.svg
Line segment Square Cube 4-cube 5-cube 6-cube 7-cube 8-cube 9-cube 10-cube

The tesseract (8-cell) is the third in the sequence of 6 convex regular 4-polytopes (in order of size and complexity).

Regular convex 4-polytopes
Symmetry group A4 B4 F4 H4
Name 5-cell

Hyper-tetrahedron
5-point

16-cell

Hyper-octahedron
8-point

8-cell

Hyper-cube
16-point

24-cell


24-point

600-cell

Hyper-icosahedron
120-point

120-cell

Hyper-dodecahedron
600-point

Schläfli symbol {3, 3, 3}{3, 3, 4}{4, 3, 3}{3, 4, 3}{3, 3, 5}{5, 3, 3}
Coxeter mirrors CDel node 1.pngCDel 3.pngCDel node.pngCDel 3.pngCDel node.pngCDel 3.pngCDel node.pngCDel node 1.pngCDel 3.pngCDel node.pngCDel 3.pngCDel node.pngCDel 4.pngCDel node.pngCDel node 1.pngCDel 4.pngCDel node.pngCDel 3.pngCDel node.pngCDel 3.pngCDel node.pngCDel node 1.pngCDel 3.pngCDel node.pngCDel 4.pngCDel node.pngCDel 3.pngCDel node.pngCDel node 1.pngCDel 3.pngCDel node.pngCDel 3.pngCDel node.pngCDel 5.pngCDel node.pngCDel node 1.pngCDel 5.pngCDel node.pngCDel 3.pngCDel node.pngCDel 3.pngCDel node.png
Mirror dihedrals𝝅/3𝝅/3𝝅/3𝝅/2𝝅/2𝝅/2𝝅/3𝝅/3𝝅/4𝝅/2𝝅/2𝝅/2𝝅/4𝝅/3𝝅/3𝝅/2𝝅/2𝝅/2𝝅/3𝝅/4𝝅/3𝝅/2𝝅/2𝝅/2𝝅/3𝝅/3𝝅/5𝝅/2𝝅/2𝝅/2𝝅/5𝝅/3𝝅/3𝝅/2𝝅/2𝝅/2
Graph 4-simplex t0.svg 4-cube t3.svg 4-cube t0.svg 24-cell t0 F4.svg 600-cell graph H4.svg 120-cell graph H4.svg
Vertices5 tetrahedral8 octahedral16 tetrahedral24 cubical120 icosahedral600 tetrahedral
Edges 10 triangular24 square32 triangular96 triangular720 pentagonal1200 triangular
Faces10 triangles32 triangles24 squares96 triangles1200 triangles720 pentagons
Cells5 tetrahedra16 tetrahedra8 cubes24 octahedra600 tetrahedra120 dodecahedra
Tori 1 5-tetrahedron 2 8-tetrahedron 2 4-cube 4 6-octahedron 20 30-tetrahedron 12 10-dodecahedron
Inscribed120 in 120-cell675 in 120-cell2 16-cells3 8-cells25 24-cells10 600-cells
Great polygons 2 squares x 34 rectangles x 44 hexagons x 412 decagons x 6100 irregular hexagons x 4
Petrie polygons 1 pentagon x 21 octagon x 32 octagons x 42 dodecagons x 44 30-gons x 620 30-gons x 4
Long radius
Edge length
Short radius
Area
Volume
4-Content

As a uniform duoprism, the tesseract exists in a sequence of uniform duoprisms: {p}×{4}.

The regular tesseract, along with the 16-cell, exists in a set of 15 uniform 4-polytopes with the same symmetry. The tesseract {4,3,3} exists in a sequence of regular 4-polytopes and honeycombs, {p,3,3} with tetrahedral vertex figures, {3,3}. The tesseract is also in a sequence of regular 4-polytope and honeycombs, {4,3,p} with cubic cells.

OrthogonalPerspective
4-generalized-2-cube.svg Complex polygon 4-4-2-stereographic3.svg
4{4}2, with 16 vertices and 8 4-edges, with the 8 4-edges shown here as 4 red and 4 blue squares

The regular complex polytope 4{4}2, CDel 4node 1.pngCDel 4.pngCDel node.png, in has a real representation as a tesseract or 4-4 duoprism in 4-dimensional space. 4{4}2 has 16 vertices, and 8 4-edges. Its symmetry is 4[4]2, order 32. It also has a lower symmetry construction, CDel 4node 1.pngCDel 2.pngCDel 4node 1.png, or 4{}×4{}, with symmetry 4[2]4, order 16. This is the symmetry if the red and blue 4-edges are considered distinct. [12]

Since their discovery, four-dimensional hypercubes have been a popular theme in art, architecture, and science fiction. Notable examples include:

The word tesseract has been adopted for numerous other uses in popular culture, including as a plot device in works of science fiction, often with little or no connection to the four-dimensional hypercube; see Tesseract (disambiguation).

Notes

  1. "The Tesseract - a 4-dimensional cube". www.cut-the-knot.org. Retrieved 2020-11-09.
  2. Elte, E. L. (2005). The Semiregular Polytopes of the Hyperspaces. Groningen: University of Groningen. ISBN   1-4181-7968-X.
  3. Coxeter 1973, pp. 122–123, §7.2. illustration Fig 7.2C.
  4. "tesseract" . Oxford English Dictionary (Online ed.). Oxford University Press. 199669.(Subscription or participating institution membership required.)
  5. "Unfolding an 8-cell". Unfolding.apperceptual.com. Retrieved 21 January 2018.
  6. Parker, Matt. Which Hypercube Unfoldings Tile Space? Retrieved 2025 May 11.
  7. Coxeter 1970, p. 18.
  8. Pournin, Lionel (2013), "The flip-Graph of the 4-dimensional cube is connected", Discrete & Computational Geometry , 49 (3): 511–530, arXiv: 1201.6543 , doi:10.1007/s00454-013-9488-y, MR   3038527, S2CID   30946324
  9. Cottle, Richard W. (1982), "Minimal triangulation of the 4-cube", Discrete Mathematics , 40: 25–29, doi: 10.1016/0012-365X(82)90185-6 , MR   0676709
  10. Coxeter 1973, p. 12, §1.8 Configurations.
  11. Coxeter 1973, p. 293.
  12. Coxeter, H. S. M., Regular Complex Polytopes, second edition, Cambridge University Press, (1991).
  13. Fowler, David (2010), "Mathematics in Science Fiction: Mathematics as Science Fiction", World Literature Today, 84 (3): 48–52, doi:10.1353/wlt.2010.0188, JSTOR   27871086, S2CID   115769478
  14. Kemp, Martin (1 January 1998), "Dali's dimensions", Nature , 391 (27): 27, Bibcode:1998Natur.391...27K, doi: 10.1038/34063 , S2CID   5317132
  15. Ursyn, Anna (2016), "Knowledge Visualization and Visual Literacy in Science Education", Knowledge Visualization and Visual Literacy in Science Education, Information Science Reference, p. 91, ISBN   9781522504818
  16. "Dot (Character) - Giant Bomb". Giant Bomb. Retrieved 21 January 2018.

References

Petrie polygon orthographic projections
1-simplex t0.svg 2-cube.svg 3-cube graph.svg 4-cube graph.svg 5-cube graph.svg 6-cube graph.svg 7-cube graph.svg 8-cube.svg 9-cube.svg 10-cube.svg
Line segment Square Cube 4-cube 5-cube 6-cube 7-cube 8-cube 9-cube 10-cube
Family An Bn I2(p) / Dn E6 / E7 / E8 / F4 / G2 Hn
Regular polygon Triangle Square p-gon Hexagon Pentagon
Uniform polyhedron Tetrahedron OctahedronCube Demicube DodecahedronIcosahedron
Uniform polychoron Pentachoron 16-cellTesseract Demitesseract 24-cell 120-cell600-cell
Uniform 5-polytope 5-simplex 5-orthoplex5-cube 5-demicube
Uniform 6-polytope 6-simplex 6-orthoplex6-cube 6-demicube 122221
Uniform 7-polytope 7-simplex 7-orthoplex7-cube 7-demicube 132231321
Uniform 8-polytope 8-simplex 8-orthoplex8-cube 8-demicube 142241421
Uniform 9-polytope 9-simplex 9-orthoplex9-cube 9-demicube
Uniform 10-polytope 10-simplex 10-orthoplex10-cube 10-demicube
Uniform n-polytope n-simplex n-orthoplexn-cube n-demicube 1k22k1k21 n-pentagonal polytope
Topics: Polytope familiesRegular polytopeList of regular polytopes and compoundsPolytope operations