8-cube Octeract
Orthogonal projection inside Petrie polygon
TypeRegular 8-polytope
Familyhypercube
Schläfli symbol{4,36}
Coxeter-Dynkin diagrams
7-faces16 {4,35}
6-faces112 {4,34}
5-faces448 {4,33}
4-faces1120 {4,32}
Cells1792 {4,3}
Faces1792 {4}
Edges1024
Vertices256
Vertex figure7-simplex
Petrie polygonhexadecagon
Coxeter groupC8, [36,4]
Dual8-orthoplex
Propertiesconvex, Hanner polytope

In geometry, an 8-cube is an eight-dimensional hypercube. It has 256 vertices, 1024 edges, 1792 square faces, 1792 cubic cells, 1120 tesseract 4-faces, 448 5-cube 5-faces, 112 6-cube 6-faces, and 16 7-cube 7-faces.

It is represented by Schläfli symbol {4,36}, being composed of 3 7-cubes around each 6-face. It is called an octeract, a portmanteau of tesseract (the 4-cube) and oct for eight (dimensions) in Greek. It can also be called a regular hexadeca-8-tope or hexadecazetton, being an 8-dimensional polytope constructed from 16 regular facets.

It is a part of an infinite family of polytopes, called hypercubes. The dual of an 8-cube can be called an 8-orthoplex and is a part of the infinite family of cross-polytopes.

Cartesian coordinates

Cartesian coordinates for the vertices of an 8-cube centered at the origin and edge length 2 are

(±1,±1,±1,±1,±1,±1,±1,±1)

while the interior of the same consists of all points (x0, x1, x2, x3, x4, x5, x6, x7) with −1 < xi < 1.

As a configuration

This configuration matrix represents the 8-cube. The rows and columns correspond to vertices, edges, faces, cells, 4-faces, 5-faces, 6-faces, and 7-faces. The diagonal numbers say how many of each element occur in the whole 8-cube. The nondiagonal numbers say how many of the column's element occur in or at the row's element.

[ 256 8 28 56 70 56 28 8 2 1024 7 21 35 35 21 7 4 4 1792 6 15 20 15 6 8 12 6 1792 5 10 10 5 16 32 24 8 1120 4 6 4 32 80 80 40 10 448 3 3 64 192 240 160 60 12 112 2 128 448 672 560 280 84 14 16 ] {\displaystyle {\begin{bmatrix}{\begin{matrix}256&8&28&56&70&56&28&8\\2&1024&7&21&35&35&21&7\\4&4&1792&6&15&20&15&6\\8&12&6&1792&5&10&10&5\\16&32&24&8&1120&4&6&4\\32&80&80&40&10&448&3&3\\64&192&240&160&60&12&112&2\\128&448&672&560&280&84&14&16\end{matrix}}\end{bmatrix}}}

The diagonal f-vector numbers are derived through the Wythoff construction, dividing the full group order of a subgroup order by removing one mirror at a time.

B8k-facefkf0f1f2f3f4f5f6f7k-figureNotes
A7( )f0256828567056288{3,3,3,3,3,3}B8/A7 = 2^8·8!/8! = 256
A6A1{ }f1210247213535217{3,3,3,3,3}B8/A6A1 = 2^8·8!/7!/2 = 1024
A5B2{4}f244179261520156{3,3,3,3}B8/A5B2 = 2^8·8!/6!/4/2 = 1792
A4B3{4,3}f381261792510105{3,3,3}B8/A4B3 = 2^8·8!/5!/8/3! = 1792
A3B4{4,3,3}f416322481120464{3,3}B8/A3B4 = 2^8·8!/4!/2^4/4! = 1120
A2B5{4,3,3,3}f5328080401044833{3}B8/A2B5 = 2^8·8!/3!/2^5/5! = 448
A1B6{4,3,3,3,3}f66419224016060121122{ }B8/A1B6 = 2^8·8!/2/2^6/6! = 112
B7{4,3,3,3,3,3}f7128448672560280841416( )B8/B7 = 2^8·8!/2^7/7! = 16

Projections

This 8-cube graph is an orthogonal projection. This orientation shows columns of vertices positioned a vertex-edge-vertex distance from one vertex on the left to one vertex on the right, and edges attaching adjacent columns of vertices. The numbers of vertices in each column are a row of Pascal's triangle: 1, 8, 28, 56, 70, 56, 28, 8, 1.
Orthographic projections
B8B7
[16][14]
B6B5
[12][10]
B4B3B2
[8][6][4]
A7A5A3
[8][6][4]

Derived polytopes

Applying an alternation operation, deleting alternating vertices of the octeract, creates another uniform polytope, called an 8-demicube, (part of an infinite family called demihypercubes), which has 16 demihepteractic and 128 8-simplex facets.

Related polytopes

The 8-cube is 8th in an infinite series of hypercubes:

Petrie polygon orthographic projections
Line segmentSquareCube4-cube5-cube6-cube7-cube8-cube9-cube10-cube
  • H.S.M. Coxeter: Coxeter, Regular Polytopes, (3rd edition, 1973), Dover, ISBN0-486-61480-8, pp. 294–295, Table I (iii): Regular Polytopes, three regular polytopes in n dimensions (n ≥ 5) Coxeter, H.S.M. (1991) [1974]. Regular Complex Polytopes. Cambridge University Press. ISBN0-521-39490-2. Kaleidoscopes: Selected Writings of H.S.M. Coxeter, edited by F. Arthur Sherk, Peter McMullen, Anthony C. Thompson, Asia Ivić Weiss, Wiley-Interscience Publication, 1995, , ISBN978-0-471-01003-6 (Paper 22) H.S.M. Coxeter, Regular and Semi-Regular Polytopes I, [Math. Zeit. 46 (1940) 380–407, MR 2,10] (Paper 23) H.S.M. Coxeter, Regular and Semi-Regular Polytopes II, [Math. Zeit. 188 (1985) 559–591] (Paper 24) H.S.M. Coxeter, Regular and Semi-Regular Polytopes III, [Math. Zeit. 200 (1988) 3–45]
  • Norman Johnson Uniform Polytopes, Manuscript (1991) N.W. Johnson: The Theory of Uniform Polytopes and Honeycombs, Ph.D. (1966)
  • Klitzing, Richard. .

External links

vteFundamental convex regular and uniform polytopes in dimensions 2–10
FamilyAnBnI2(p) / DnE6 / E7 / E8 / F4 / G2Hn
Regular polygonTriangleSquarep-gonHexagonPentagon
Uniform polyhedronTetrahedronOctahedronCubeDemicubeDodecahedronIcosahedron
Uniform polychoronPentachoron16-cellTesseractDemitesseract24-cell120-cell600-cell
Uniform 5-polytope5-simplex5-orthoplex5-cube5-demicube
Uniform 6-polytope6-simplex6-orthoplex6-cube6-demicube122221
Uniform 7-polytope7-simplex7-orthoplex7-cube7-demicube132231321
Uniform 8-polytope8-simplex8-orthoplex8-cube8-demicube142241421
Uniform 9-polytope9-simplex9-orthoplex9-cube9-demicube
Uniform 10-polytope10-simplex10-orthoplex10-cube10-demicube
Uniform n-polytopen-simplexn-orthoplexn-cuben-demicube1k22k1k21n-pentagonal polytope
Topics: Polytope familiesRegular polytopeList of regular polytopes and compounds • Polytope operations