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Concept
Polytope compound
Summary
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.
The outer vertices of a compound can be connected to form a convex polyhedron called its convex hull. A compound is a facetting of its convex hull.
Another convex polyhedron is formed by the small central space common to all members of the compound. This polyhedron can be used as the core for a set of stellations.
A regular polyhedral compound can be defined as a compound which, like a regular polyhedron, is vertex-transitive, edge-transitive, and face-transitive. Unlike the case of polyhedra, this is not equivalent to the symmetry group acting transitively on its flags; the compound of two tetrahedra is the only regular compound with that property. There are five regular compounds of polyhedra:
Best known is the regular compound of two tetrahedra, often called the stella octangula, a name given to it by Kepler. The vertices of the two tetrahedra define a cube, and the intersection of the two define a regular octahedron, which shares the same face-planes as the compound. Thus the compound of two tetrahedra is a stellation of the octahedron, and in fact, the only finite stellation thereof.
The regular compound of five tetrahedra comes in two enantiomorphic versions, which together make up the regular compound of ten tetrahedra. The regular compound of ten tetrahedra can also be constructed with five Stellae octangulae.
Each of the regular tetrahedral compounds is self-dual or dual to its chiral twin; the regular compound of five cubes and the regular compound of five octahedra are dual to each other.
Hence, regular polyhedral compounds can also be regarded as dual-regular compounds.
Coxeter's notation for regular compounds is given in the table above, incorporating Schläfli symbols. The material inside the square brackets, [d{p,q}], denotes the components of the compound: d separate {p,q}'s.
Official source
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