Polyhedra without diagonals (Q797148)

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scientific article; zbMATH DE number 3868121
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    Polyhedra without diagonals
    scientific article; zbMATH DE number 3868121

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      Polyhedra without diagonals (English)
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      1984
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      The author shows that there is no polyhedron without diagonals which has 5 vertices and that for each \(n\geq 6\) there exists a polyhedron with exactly n vertices. The author defines a polyhedron to be the union of a finite family of tetrahedra, (such that the intersection of any two of these tetrahedra is empty or a common vertex or a common edge or a common face). The boundary of a polyhedron need not be a manifold. A diagonal of a polyhedron is a segment which connects two vertices but which is not contained in the edge skeleton. In Lemma 2 the author claims that each polyhedron has a simplicial decomposition such that all vertices of all the tetrahedra of the decomposition are vertices of the polyhedron too. This lemma is false, even for polyhedra which have a topological sphere as surface, as the following polyhedron shows: Choose a (nonregular) convex octahedron such that no four vertices are coplanar and remove from this octahedron the three tetrahedra having a diagonal of the octahedron as an edge and meeting the other two diagonals only in a common vertex. The topological closure of the resulting set yields the counterexample.
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      union of a finite family of tetrahedra
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      simplicial decomposition
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