The height of faces of 3-polytopes (Q2360257)

The authors prove a result for normal planar maps with an application to finite, convex, 3-dimensional polytopes (that is, \textit{3-polytopes}). This result adds to the body of literature related to the \textit{height} \(h(M)\) of a normal planar map \(M\) (the height of a face of \(M\) is the maximal degree of the vertices incident to that face; the height of \(M\) is the minimum height among all the face heights). Because the height of a normal planar graph with so-called \textit{pyramidal} faces can be arbitrarily large, the authors restrict to graphs with no such faces. The principal result improves and definitively sharpens a bound given by \textit{M. Horňák} and \textit{S. Jendrol'} [Discuss. Math., Graph Theory 16, No. 2, 123--141 (1996; Zbl 0877.05048)], namely: Theorem: Every normal planar map with no pyramidal faces has a face of height no more than 20, sharply. Consequently, every 3-polytope without pyramidal faces has a face height of no more than 20, sharply.