ZOMETOOL MODEL OF A 5 CELL

Here we describe how to build another orthogonal projection of the 5 cell, one of the six regular polytopes in 4-dimensional space, using the zometool system. For the model you need

  • 5 balls,
  • 2 long blue (b2) struts,
  • 4 long yellow (y2) struts,
  • 2 long red (r2) struts,
  • 2 medium red (r1) struts.

Of course one can scale down the model to b1-y1-r1-r0 (which is quite tiny).

For further information and instructions you might also wish to consult one of the following webpages:

The pictures below were taken by Eva-Maria Gassner.

Step 1 (continued)


... and build a tetrahedron from them.


Step 2 (continued)


... and build a kind of 'sputnik' from them.


Step 3


Mount the red 'sputnik' on the tetrahedron constructed in step 1 to complete the model.


In this model it is a little bit more difficult - compared to the previous one - to find and to see the five different tetrahedral cells. The first one has only blue and yellow edges. It has been constructed in step 1. The second and third tetrahedron are rather squashed and their edges are blue, 2x yellow, 1x long red and 2x medium red. They come as a pair of tetrahedra that are reflected images (with respect to the plane spanned by the blue and the two medium red edges) of each other. And there is another pair of such tetrahedra, but this time having 2 long and 1 medium red edge. They appear a bit less squashed.