24-cell - Constructions

Constructions

A 24-cell is given as the convex hull of its vertices. The vertices of a 24-cell centered at the origin of 4-space, with edges of length 1, can be given as follows: 8 vertices obtained by permuting

(±1, 0, 0, 0)

and 16 vertices of the form

(±½, ±½, ±½, ±½).

The first 8 vertices are the vertices of a regular 16-cell and the other 16 are the vertices of the dual tesseract. This gives a construction equivalent to cutting a tesseract into 8 cubical pyramids, and then attaching them to the facets of a second tesseract. The analogous construction in 3-space gives the rhombic dodecahedron which, however, is not regular.

We can further divide the last 16 vertices into two groups: those with an even number of minus (−) signs and those with an odd number. Each of groups of 8 vertices also define a regular 16-cell. The vertices of the 24-cell can then be grouped into three sets of eight with each set defining a regular 16-cell, and with the complement defining the dual tesseract.

The vertices of the dual 24-cell are given by all permutations of

(±1, ±1, 0, 0).

The dual 24-cell has edges of length √2 and is inscribed in a 3-sphere of radius √2.

Another method of constructing the 24-cell is by the rectification of the 16-cell. The vertex figure of the 16-cell is the octahedron; thus, cutting the vertices of the 16-cell at the midpoint of its incident edges produce 8 octahedral cells. This process also rectifies the tetrahedral cells of the 16-cell which also become octahedra, thus forming the 24 octahedral cells of the 24-cell.