Duoprism

Set of uniform p,q-duoprisms

Example 16,16-duoprism
Schlegel diagram
Projection from the center of one 16-gonal prism, and all but one of the opposite 16-gonal prisms are shown.
Type Prismatic uniform polychoron
Schläfli symbol {p}x{q}
Coxeter-Dynkin diagram
Cells p q-gonal prisms,
q p-gonal prisms
Faces pq squares,
p q-gons,
q p-gons
Edges 2pq
Vertices pq
Vertex figure
disphenoid tetrahedron
Symmetry [p,2,q], order 4pq
[[p,2,p]], order 8p2, p=q
Dual Duopyramid
Properties convex if both bases are convex

In geometry of 4 dimensions or higher, a duoprism is a polytope resulting from the Cartesian product of two polytopes, each of two dimensions or higher. The Cartesian product of an n-polytope and an m-polytope is an (n+m)-polytope, where n and m are 2 (polygon) or higher.

The lowest dimensional duoprisms exist in 4-dimensional space as polychora (4-polytopes) being the Cartesian product of two polygons in 2-dimensional Euclidean space. More precisely, it is the set of points:

P_1 \times P_2 = \{ (x,y,z,w) | (x,y)\in P_1, (z,w)\in P_2 \}

where P1 and P2 are the sets of the points contained in the respective polygons. Such a duoprism is convex if both bases are convex, and is bounded by prismatic cells.

Contents

Nomenclature

Four-dimensional duoprisms are considered to be prismatic polychora. A duoprism constructed from two regular polygons of the same size is a uniform duoprism.

A duoprism made of n-polygons and m-polygons is named by prefixing 'duoprism' with the names of the base polygons, for example: a triangular-pentagonal duoprism is the Cartesian product of a triangle and a pentagon.

An alternative, more concise way of specifying a particular duoprism is by prefixing with numbers denoting the base polygons, for example: 3,5-duoprism for the triangular-pentagonal duoprism.

Other alternative names:

The term duoprism is coined by George Olshevsky, shortened from double prism. Conway proposed a similar name proprism for product prism.

Geometry of 4-dimensional duoprisms

A close up inside the 23-29 duoprism projected onto a 3-sphere, and perspective projected to 3-space. As m and n become large, a duoprism approaches the geometry of duocylinder just like a p-gonal prism approaches a cylinder.

A 4-dimensional uniform duoprism is created by the product of a regular n-sided polygon and a regular m-sided polygon with the same edge length. It is bounded by n m-gonal prisms and m n-gonal prisms. For example, the Cartesian product of a triangle and a hexagon is a duoprism bounded by 6 triangular prisms and 3 hexagonal prisms.

The m-gonal prisms are attached to each other via their m-gonal faces, and form a closed loop. Similarly, the n-gonal prisms are attached to each other via their n-gonal faces, and form a second loop perpendicular to the first. These two loops are attached to each other via their square faces, and are mutually perpendicular.

As m and n approach infinity, the corresponding duoprisms approach the duocylinder. As such, duoprisms are useful as non-quadric approximations of the duocylinder.

Polychoral duoantiprisms

Like the antiprisms as alternated prisms, there is a set of 4-dimensional duoantiprisms polychorons that can be created by an alternation operation applied to a duoprism. However most are not uniform. The alternated vertices create nonregular tetrahedral cells, except for the special case, the 4-4 duoprism (tesseract) which creates the uniform (and regular) 16-cell. The 16-cell is the only convex uniform duoantiprism.

See also grand antiprism.

Images of uniform polychoral duoprisms

All of these images are Schlegel diagrams with one cell shown. The p-q duoprisms are identical to the q-p duoprisms, but look different because they are projected in the center of different cells.

6-prism 6-6-duoprism
A hexagonal prism, projected into the plane by perspective, centered on a hexagonal face, looks like a double hexagon connected by (distorted) squares. Similarly a 6-6 duoprism projected into 3D approximates a torus, hexagonal both in plan and in section.

3-3
3-4
3-5
3-6
3-7
3-8

4-3
4-4
4-5
4-6
4-7
4-8

5-3
5-4
5-5
5-6
5-7
5-8

6-3
6-4
6-5
6-6
6-7
6-8

7-3
7-4
7-5
7-6
7-7
7-8

8-3
8-4
8-5
8-6
8-7
8-8

Related polytopes

The regular skew polyhedron, {4,4|n}, exists in 4-space as the n2 square faces of a n-n duoprism, using all 2n2 edges and n2 vertices. The 2n n-gonal faces can be seen as removed. (skew polyhedra can be seen in the same way by a n-m duoprism, but these are not regular.)

See also

References

External links