Existence and uniqueness theorem for a 3-dimensional polytope in \(\mathbb{R}^3\) with prescribed directions and perimeters of the facets (Q2286617)

Let \(P\) be a \(3\)-dimensional polytope in \(\mathbb{R}^3\) with \(N\) facets whose areas are \(F_1,\dots,F_N\). In 1897, Minkowski proved that \(P\) is uniquely determined, up to translation, by the set of \(F_i\) together with the outward-pointing normal vectors for the facets. This article proves a modified version of Minkowski's result, motivated in part by work of Alexandrov: the author characterizes for which unit vectors \(n_1,\dots,n_N \in \mathbb{R}^3\) and which \(L_1,\dots,L_N \in \mathbb{R}_{>0}\) there exists a polytope \(P \subseteq \mathbb{R}^3\) having outward-pointing facet normals \(n_1,\dots,n_N\) and facet perimeters \(L_1,\dots,L_n\). The author provides five conditions for this characterization, one of which relies on Steinitz's Theorem. Thus, generalizing the author's result to higher-dimensional polytopes remains an open problem.