Compound of six cubes with rotational freedom

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Short description: Polyhedral compound
Compound of six cubes with rotational freedom
UC07-6 cubes.png
Type Uniform compound
Index UC7
Polyhedra 6 cubes
Faces 12+24 squares
Edges 72
Vertices 48
Symmetry group octahedral (Oh)
Subgroup restricting to one constituent 4-fold rotational (C4h)

This uniform polyhedron compound is a symmetric arrangement of 6 cubes, considered as square prisms. It can be constructed by superimposing six identical cubes, and then rotating them in pairs about the three axes that pass through the centres of two opposite cubic faces. Each cube is rotated by an equal (and opposite, within a pair) angle θ.

When θ = 0, all six cubes coincide. When θ is 45 degrees, the cubes coincide in pairs yielding (two superimposed copies of) the compound of three cubes.

Cartesian coordinates

Cartesian coordinates for the vertices of this compound are all the permutations of

[math]\displaystyle{ (\pm(\cos(\theta)+\sin(\theta)), \pm(\cos(\theta)-\sin(\theta)), \pm1). }[/math]

Gallery

References

  • Skilling, John (1976), "Uniform Compounds of Uniform Polyhedra", Mathematical Proceedings of the Cambridge Philosophical Society 79: 447–457, doi:10.1017/S0305004100052440 .