N

An Overview of this Session

An Intuitive Visual Approach
Stretching your Intuition
An Easy Mathematical Approach
Building a cube Mathematically
Cubes within Cubes: Line sets
Back to the Author
Most people do not know what an N-space cube is, much
less how to draw one. These pages show you what they
are and how to create them. The visual approach to
drawing them can be understood by fourth graders, while
the mathematical approach can be understood by freshmen
in high school. I hope you have fun with N-space
Cubes. They have provided me with much enjoyment and
delight.
Sincerely,
Dennis Clark
This material is copyrighted, but can be used as long as it
is not altered and as long as the author retains credit.
 N
An Intuitive Visual Approach

We say:

“I See!”

when we understand
A 0-space cube is a point.

Here, we represent it with

a black dot.
Two 0-space cubes with a
line between the points makes
a 1-space cube. (A line)
Two 1-space cubes with
their corresponding
points connected make a
2-space cube. (A square)
Two 2-space cubes with
their corresponding
corners connected form
a 3-space cube.
(a cube)
These two 3-space cubes
appear to be overlapping.

No problem.
Two 3-space cubes with
their corresponding
corners connected form
a 4-space cube.
(a tesseract)
So how do we create
a 5-space cube?
Connect the corresponding corners of two 4-space cubes to form
a 5-space cube.
A messy 5-space cube.
 N
Stretching your Intuition

The brain needs to be

Stretched and Exercised

much like the muscles of your body

 Even here we are violating the
geometric definition of a cube.
a c
6-sides
equal length lines
90 degree corners
b
Angle b,a,c is not 90 degrees.

Whenever we represent a 3-dimensional object in 2 dimensions

something gets distorted. Here it’s some of the angles.
For our purposes, the physical position of any point is irrelevant.

e Only its connectivity is

a important.
g A point must remain
c connected to the same
points regardless of its
physical location.

f
b
h
d
 e
a h
g
c

b
d So this is also a cube.
This is still a cube.
The physical location of any point is irrelevant.

e
h
c
g

a f

b
It is the connectivity that makes
d
this a 3-space cube.
 We pause for a neighborly definition:
Adjacents

Points b, c, and e are

a e adjacent to point a.
c g
b,c, and e are
the adjacents of a.

b f

d h
These are both 3-space cubes because their connectivity is correct.
In fact, the right-hand cube is just a twisted version of the one
on the left. a
b
e h
a
c g

g
c
b f

d h f d

e
Let’s untwist the
Twisted Circle Cube
a
Pretend the cube is a flat pancake. b
h
Cut the pancake in half along the
dotted line.

Flip the left half of the pancake g

over while keeping each of the c
the points attached to their
respective adjacents.
f d

e
Let’s untwist the
Twisted Circle Cube
a
Now quarter the pancake. b
e
Flip the G-H quarter over.

Doing so will untwist EG

and FH, but it will twist f
GC and HD. c

g d

h
Let’s untwist the
Twisted Circle Cube
a
Now quarter the pancake. b
e
Flip the G-H quarter over.

Just when it looks like

things have gotten f
worse... c

h d

g
Things finally get straightened
out.
a
Our Twisted Circle Cube b
is now an e

Untwisted Circle Cube.

f
d

h c

g
 It is now an
Untwisted Circle Cube
a
b
e e
a
c g

f
d
b f

d h h c

g
 N
An Easy Mathematical Approach

Math is a tool

of Infinite Possibilities
Letters are a Cumbersome e m
Naming Convention
y
l
a d

c k x
s
r w ad
j
v
u ac
b i q
h p t ab
g
aa
o
f ae
n z
Every N-cube has 2N points (corners)

N Points in
space each cube
0 1
2 6 0 1
1 2
2 4
3 8
4 16
4 5 5 32
6 64
3 7 7 128
 We label the corners using binary numbers

000 001
At first this may seem
to be even more clumsy
than using letters.
010 011
But it gives us one huge
advantage we didn’t have
101 before:

100 Now, we can identify the

adjacents mathematically.
110 111
 The points of an N-space cube can be uniquely identified by
N
using 2 N-digit binary numbers.
000 001
00 01

010 011

101
100 10 11
110 111
N=3 N=2
3-digit numbers 2-digit numbers
N
2 N = (8) points 2 = (4) points
 Two points are adjacent
if their binary digits differ by only one digit.

00 01
Is adjacent to
00 01
00 10
01 00
01 11
10 00
10 11
11 01
11 10 10 11
A clarifying example: 1101000
1101011
1101101
The adjacents of 1101001 are 1100001
1111001
because each adjacent 1001001
differs from 1101001 by 0101001
one and only one digit.

1101001 1101001 1101001 1101001 1101001 1101001 1101001

1101000 1101011 1101101 1100001 1111001 1001001 0101001
The XOR binary operation

0 1 0 xor 0=0
0 xor 1=1
1 xor 0=1
0 0 1 1 xor 1=0

1 1 0

1101001 1101001 1101001 1101001 1101001 1101001 1101001

0000001 0000010 0000100 0001000 0010000 0100000 1000000
1101000 1101011 1101101 1100001 1111001 1001001 0101001
 N
Build a Cube Mathematically

XORbitantly Large

N-Space Cubes
000
001
001 000

001
000 000
001 010
001 010 000

001 010
000 000 000
001 010 100
001 010 100 000

001 010 100

001 001
001 010
000 011 000

001 010 100

011
001 001 001
001 010 100
000 011 101 000

001 010 100

011 101
010 010
001 010
011 000 000

001 010 100

011 101
010 010 010
001 010 100
001 000 110 000

001 010 100

011 101 110

100 100
001 010
001 110 000

001 010 100

011 101 110

100 100 100
001 010 100
001 110 000 000

001 010 100

011 101 110

011 011 011
001 010 100
010 001 111 000

001 010 100

011 101 110

111
101 101 101
001 010 100
101 111 001 000

001 010 100

011 101 110

111
110 110 110
001 010 100
111 100 110 000

001 010 100

011 101 110

111
 000

001 010 100

011 101 110

111
 0000

0001 0010 0100 1000

0011 0101 1001 0110 1010 1100

0111 1011 1101 1110

1111
1 0000

4 0001 0010 0100 1000

6 0011 0101 1001 0110 1010 1100

4 0111 1011 1101 1110

1 1111
1 Pascal’s
1 1 Triangle
1 2 1
1 3 3 1
1 4 6 4 1
1 5 10 10 5 1
1 6 15 20 15 6 1
1 7 21 35 35 21 7 1
 00000

00001 00010 00100 01000 10000

00011 00101 01001 10001 00110 01010 10010 01100 10100 11000

00111 01011 10011 01101 10101 11001 01110 10110 11010 11100

01111 10111 11011 11101 11110

11111
 N
Lineset Symmetries

Pretty N-cube

Pictures
 0000
1

0001 0010 0100 1000

1 1 1

0011 0101 1001 0110 1010 1100

1 1 1

0111 1011 1101 1110

1

1111
 0000
2

0001 0010 0100 1000

2 2 2

0011 0101 1001 0110 1010 1100

2 2 2

0111 1011 1101 1110

2

1111
 0000
3

0001 0010 0100 1000

3 3 3

0011 0101 1001 0110 1010 1100

3 3 3

0111 1011 1101 1110

3

1111
 0000
4

0001 0010 0100 1000

4 4 4

0011 0101 1001 0110 1010 1100

4 4 4

0111 1011 1101 1110

4

1111
 0000
1 2 3 4

0001 0010 0100 1000

2 31 4 1 3 421 42 3

0011 0101 1001 0110 1010 1100

3 42 421 3 1 4 31 2

0111 1011 1101 1110

4 3 2 1

1111
 n
0
(t+2) = 1 (t+2)
1
(t+2) = T + 2

2 2
(t+2) = T + 4 T + 4

3 3 2
(t+2) = T + 6 T + 12 T + 8

4 4 3 2
(t+2) = T + 8 T + 24 T + 32 T + 16

5 5 4 3 2
(t+2) = T + 10 T + 40 T + 80 T + 80 T + 32

6 6 5 4 3 2
(t+2) = T + 12 T + 60 T + 160 T + 240 T + 192 T + 64

7 7 6 5 4 3 2
(t+2) = T + 14 T + 84 T + 280 T + 560 T + 672 T + 448 T + 128

8 8 7 6 5 4 3 2
(t+2) = T + 16 T + 112 T + 448 T + 1120 T + 1792 T + 1792 T + 1024 T + 256
 6 6 5 4 3 2
(T+2) = T + 12T + 60T + 160T + 240T + 192T + 64

The coefficients of the

A 6-space cube contains: algebraically expanded expression
(1) 6-space cube N
12 5-space cubes (T+2) contain some curious
60 4-space cubes information.
160 3-space cubes
240 2-space cubes
192 1-space cubes
64 0-space cubes
 00000

00001 00010 00100 01000 10000

00011 00101 01001 10001 00110 01010 10010 01100 10100 11000

00111 01011 10011 01101 10101 11001 01110 10110 11010 11100

01111 10111 11011 11101 11110

11111