Boerdijk–Coxeter helix
- 2 min read
- 4 chapters
Related on Lably
Through Helix, Platonic solid and Buckminster Fuller
Buckminster Fuller named it a tetrahelix and considered them with regular and irregular tetrahedral elements.
Geometry
The coordinates of vertices of Boerdijk–Coxeter helix composed of tetrahedrons with unit edge length can be written in the form
where , , and is an arbitrary integer. The two different values of correspond to two chiral forms. All vertices are located on the cylinder with radius along z-axis. Given how the tetrahedra alternate, this gives an apparent twist of every two tetrahedra. There is another inscribed cylinder with radius inside the helix.
Sign in to keep reading
3 more chapters are free with a Lably account.
Higher-dimensional geometry
The 600-cell partitions into 20 rings of 30 tetrahedra, each a Boerdijk–Coxeter helix. When superimposed onto the 3-sphere curvature it becomes periodic, with a period of ten vertices, encompassing all 30 cells. The collective of such helices in the 600-cell represent a discrete Hopf fibration. While in 3 dimensions the edges are helices, in the imposed 3-sphere topology they are geodesics and have no torsion. They spiral around each other naturally due to the Hopf fibration. The collective of edges forms another discrete Hopf fibration of 12 rings with 10 vertices each. These correspond to rings of 10 dodecahedrons in the dual 120-cell.
In addition, the 16-cell partitions into two 8-tetrahedron rings, four edges long, and the 5-cell partitions into a single degenerate 5-tetrahedron ring.
Related polyhedral helixes
Equilateral square pyramids can also be chained together as a helix, with two vertex configurations, 3.4.3.4 and 3.3.4.3.3.4. This helix exists as finite ring of 30 pyramids in a 4-dimensional polytope.
And equilateral pentagonal pyramids can be chained with 3 vertex configurations, 3.3.5, 3.5.3.5, and 3.3.3.5.3.3.5:
In architecture
The Art Tower Mito is based on a Boerdijk–Coxeter helix.