Neighborly families in \(E^d\) consisting of either \(d\)-pyramids over \((d-1)\)-cubes, or else of \(d\)-cubes (Q1990611)

A family \(\mathcal{P} = \{P_1,\dots,P_n\}\) of \(d\)-dimensional convex polytopes in Euclidean \(d\)-space is called \textit{nearly neighborly} if, for each \(P_i\) and \(P_j\) with \(i \neq j\), there exists a hyperplane separating \(P_i\) and \(P_j\) such that, for both \(P_i\) and \(P_j\), the intersection of the polytope and the hyperplane is a facet of the polytope. A stronger condition is to have \(P_i \cap P_j\) be a facet of both \(P_i\) and \(P_j\). When this happens, the family is called \textit{neighborly}. The authors discuss two objects that may or may not exist for a nearly neighborly family, called \textit{common piercing lines} and \textit{rods}. Intuitively, a \(d\)-rod of \(\mathcal{P}\), which we denote \(R(\mathcal{P})\), is a combinatorial cube containing all of the polytopes in \(\mathcal{P}\) such that \(R(\mathcal{P})\) has two disjoint facets, \(B\) and \(T\), called the ``bottom'' and the ``top,'' with the following two properties: for each \(P \in \mathcal{P}\), there are facets \(F_B, F_T\) for which \(F_B \subset B\) and \(F_T \subset T\); and there exist lines \(\ell_B\) and \(\ell_T\) such that \(\ell_B\) passes through the interiors of all of the \(F_B\) and \(\ell_T\) passes through the interiors of all of the \(F_T\). Given a nearly neighborly family, there is not necessarily a rod. However, in the article under review, the authors prove that for each \(d \geq 3\), there does exist a neighborly family of \(d\)-polytopes in Euclidean \(d\)-space which has a rod. This family consists of \(2^d\) convex combinatorial cubes, and is proven by induction. While the proof is short, the authors provide five corollaries, regarding neighborly families of \(d\)-cubes, neighborly tetrahedra in \(3\)-space, and existence of common piercing lines.