polytope
nounUK /ˈpɒlɪˌtəʊp/ · US /ˈpɑliˌtoʊp/
Etymology Learned borrowing from German Polytop, originally coined by German mathematician Reinhold Hoppe in 1882, and first used in English by British mathematician Alicia Boole Stott in her 1910 paper Geometrical deduction of semiregular from regular polytopes and space fillings. By surface analysis, poly- (“many”) + -tope (“surface”), from Ancient Greek τόπος (tópos, “region; area”).
Geometry, Mathematics, Sciences A geometric shape (of any number of dimensions) which is fully enclosed and has flat sides, making it a member of the generalized class of shapes which includes the two-dimensional polygon and three-dimensional polyhedron; (formally) a finite region of n-dimensional space bounded by hyperplanes.
- As is well known, the theory of linear inequalities is closely related to the study of convex polytopes.1964, Victor Klee, On the Number of Vertices of a Convex Polytope: Canadian Journal of Mathematics, volume XVI, number 4, page 701:
- This polytope is mapped into a Cartesian force polytope (resp. torque polytope) in the Cartesian space. Such a polytope represents the exact force (resp. torque) that can be produced on the vehicle main body.1998, F. Pierrot, M. Benoit, P. Dauchez, “SamoS: A Pythagorean Solution for Omnidirectional Underwater Vehicles”, in Jadran Lenar I, Manfred L. Husty, editors, Advances in Robot Kinematics: Analysis and Control, page 220:
1 more example
- Verify the Hirsch conjecture for the 3-cube, 4-cube and any other polytope that takes your fancy. The Steinitz theorem is a very satisfactory understanding of the graphs of three-dimensional polytopes.2006, Rekha R. Thomas, Lectures in Geometric Combinatorics, page 27:
- Derived terms
- 0-polytope, 1-polytope, 2-polytope, 3-polytope, 4-polytope, 5-polytope, abstract polytope, Birkhoff polytope, chiral polytope, convex polytope, cross-polytope, cyclic polytope, Hanner polytope, integral polytope, matroid polytope, n-polytope, parallelotope, pentagonal polytope, polytopal, random polytope, regular polytope, uniform polytope, zonotope
- Related terms
- polytopic
- Hyponyms
- polygon, polyhedron, polychoron, hypercube, simplex, tesseract