The Hyperspace Analogue of the Stella Octangula

The simplest polyhedron is the tetrahedron, and it is self-dual. The compound of two tetrahedra puts these duals together, and is most often called the Stella Octangula, a name Johannes Kepler gave it in the early 17th Century.

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In hyperspace, or 4-space, the simplest polychoron is the pentachoron, or 5-cell. Like the tetrahedron in 3-space, it is also self-dual. Here is the compound of two of them: hyperspace’s version of the Stella Octangula.

Compound of 1-Pen, 5-cell, Pentachoron and dual

Website to find the software used to make these images:  www.software3d.com/stella.php

Rhombicosidodecahedron with Invisible Squares

The essential facts about this Archimedean solid: it has 62 faces total (12 pentagons, 20 triangles, and 30 squares, with the squares hidden here), 120 edges, and 60 vertices.

Rhombicosidodeca

To see the software used to produce this .gif image, just visit www.software3d.com/Stella.php.

Rotating Compound of the Tesseract and Its Dual

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Rotating Compound of the Tesseract and Its Dual

Blue figure: a projection of the tesseract, or hypercube; also known as the 8-cell or octachoron — a four-dimensional figure composed of eight cubic cells in a regular arrangement.

Red figure: its dual, the 16-cell or hexadecachoron, which is composed of sixteen tetrahedral cells.

To buy (or just try) the software used to make this image, Stella 4d, please visit http://www.software3d.com/Stella.php.