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In four-dimensional euclidean geometry, the tesseractic honeycomb is one of the three regular space-filling tessellations (or honeycombs), represented by Schläfli symbol {4,3,3,4}, and constructed by a 4-dimensional packing of tesseract facets.
Contents
- Coordinates
- Constructions
- Related polytopes and tessellations
- Birectified tesseractic honeycomb
- References
Its vertex figure is a 16-cell. Two tesseracts meet at each cubic cell, four meet at each square face, eight meet on each edge, and sixteen meet at each vertex.
It is an analog of the square tiling, {4,4}, of the plane and the cubic honeycomb, {4,3,4}, of 3-space. These are all part of the hypercubic honeycomb family of tessellations of the form {4,3,...,3,4}. Tessellations in this family are Self-dual.
Coordinates
Vertices of this honeycomb can be positioned in 4-space in all integer coordinates (i,j,k,l).
Constructions
There are many different Wythoff constructions of this honeycomb. The most symmetric form is regular, with Schläfli symbol {4,3,3,4}. Another form has two alternating tesseract facets (like a checkerboard) with Schläfli symbol {4,3,31,1}. The lowest symmetry Wythoff construction has 16 types of facets around each vertex and a prismatic product Schläfli symbol {∞}4. One can be made by stericating another.
Related polytopes and tessellations
The [4,3,3,4], , Coxeter group generates 31 permutations of uniform tessellations, 21 with distinct symmetry and 20 with distinct geometry. The expanded tesseractic honeycomb (also known as the stericated tesseractic honeycomb) is geometrically identical to the tesseractic honeycomb. Three of the symmetric honeycombs are shared in the [3,4,3,3] family. Two alternations (13) and (17), and the quarter tesseractic (2) are repeated in other families.
The [4,3,31,1], , Coxeter group generates 31 permutations of uniform tessellations, 23 with distinct symmetry and 4 with distinct geometry. There are two alternated forms: the alternations (19) and (24) have the same geometry as the 16-cell honeycomb and snub 24-cell honeycomb respectively.
The 24-cell honeycomb is similar, but as a body centered cubic, it has vertices positioned at integers (i,j,k,l), and half integers (i+1/2,j+1/2,k+1/2,l+1/2).
The tesseract can make a regular tessellation of the 4-sphere, with three tesseracts per face, with Schläfli symbol {4,3,3,3}, called an order-3 tesseractic honeycomb. It is topologically equivalent to the regular polytope penteract in 5-space.
The tesseract can make a regular tessellation of 4-dimensional hyperbolic space, with 5 tesseracts around each face, with Schläfli symbol {4,3,3,5}, called an order-5 tesseractic honeycomb.
Birectified tesseractic honeycomb
A birectified tesseractic honeycomb, , contains all rectified 16-cell (24-cell) facets and is the Voronoi tessellation of the D4* lattice. Facets can be identically colored from a doubled