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The UCL Knowledge Lab Polytope
The Polytope is a model of an inhabitant of a 4-dimensional geometrical space, realised as a 3-dimensional “shadow”.
It’s much the same way that sunlight shining on a 3-dimensional geometric shape creates a 2-dimensional shadow on a wall, but one dimension higher!
The model represents one of the more complex members of the family of polytopes, the 4-dimensional analogues of polyhedra in 3 dimensions.
What's a Polyhedron?
Polyhedra are solids with flat faces. Any 3-dimensional solid is a polyhedron if all of its sides are flat. Examples of real-world polyhedra include footballs, prisms, bricks, and pyramids.
Nerdy Stats about the Polytope
The omnitruncated 600-cell, (or more simply, polytope) is the largest member in the 120-cell/600-cell family of uniform polychora. It is a convex uniform 4-polytope, composed of 2640 cells: 120 truncated icosidodecahedra, 600 truncated octahedra, 720 decagonal prisms, and 1200 hexagonal prisms. It has 14400 vertices, 28800 edges, and 17040 faces (10800 squares, 4800 hexagons, and 1440 decagons). It is the largest nonprismatic convex uniform 4-polytope.
Where can I see the Knowledge Lab Polytope?
After a 5-year visit to the UCL IOE main building in 20 Bedford Way, the Polytope has returned to the UCL Knowledge Lab in 23-29 Emerald Street, London, WC1N 3QS.
