Exceptional Objects
From architecture and various other arts we know how aesthetically pleasing it is to have a uniform repetitive series highlighted by a single exceptional decoration. The same is true in mathematics. In every dimension greater than two we know the analogies to the tetrahedron (simplex), the octahedron and the cube as examples of regular polytopes. Only in dimension three and four there are exceptional objects: the dodecahedron and the icosahedron in three-space and three other regular polytopes in dimension four found by Schlaefli 1853. The author lists more similar examples. (Lie groups, finite simple groups, sums of squares, finite dimensional division algebras over the reals, non-desarguesian projective planes.) He concludes with the challenge to find out to what extent the Octonions (Cayley numbers) are ``the mother of all exceptions.
- Linear pantographic sheets: existence and uniqueness of weak solutions
- Felix Klein's projective representations of the groups \(S_6\) and \(A_7\)
- Some exceptional cases in mathematics: Euler characteristic, division algebras, cross vector product and Fano matroid
- THE (2+2)-SIGNATURE AND THE (1+1)-MATRIX-BRANE
- On regular polytopes
- Niceness theorems
- Does Mathematics Distinguish Certain Dimensions of Spaces?
- DG categories and exceptional collections
- The magic star of exceptional periodicity
- Why Quaternions and Octonions Exist
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