Hypercube in the context of "Convex polytope"

Four-dimensional space (4D) is the mathematical extension of the concept of three-dimensional space (3D). Three-dimensional space is the simplest possible abstraction of the observation that one needs only three numbers, called dimensions, to describe the sizes or locations of objects in the everyday world. This concept of ordinary space is called Euclidean space because it corresponds to Euclid's geometry, which was originally abstracted from the spatial experiences of everyday life.

Single locations in Euclidean 4D space can be given as vectors or 4-tuples, i.e., as ordered lists of numbers such as (x, y, z, w). For example, the volume of a rectangular box is found by measuring and multiplying its length, width, and height (often labeled x, y, and z). It is only when such locations are linked together into more complicated shapes that the full richness and geometric complexity of 4D spaces emerge. A hint of that complexity can be seen in the accompanying 2D animation of one of the simplest possible regular 4D objects, the tesseract, which is analogous to the 3D cube.

In graph theory, the hypercube graph ${\displaystyle Q_{n}}$ is the edge graph of the ${\displaystyle n}$-dimensional hypercube, that is, it is the graph formed from the vertices and edges of the hypercube. For instance, the cube graph ${\displaystyle Q_{3}}$ is the graph formed by the 8 vertices and 12 edges of a three-dimensional cube.${\displaystyle Q_{n}}$ has ${\displaystyle 2^{n}}$ vertices, ${\displaystyle 2^{n-1}n}$ edges, and is a regular graph with ${\displaystyle n}$ edges touching each vertex.

The hypercube graph ${\displaystyle Q_{n}}$ may also be constructed by creating a vertex for each subset of an ${\displaystyle n}$-element set, with two vertices adjacent when their subsets differ in a single element, or by creating a vertex for each ${\displaystyle n}$-digit binary number, with two vertices adjacent when their binary representations differ in a single digit. It is the ${\displaystyle n}$-fold Cartesian product of the two-vertex complete graph, and may be decomposed into two copies of ${\displaystyle Q_{n-1}}$ connected to each other by a perfect matching.

The snake-in-the-box problem in graph theory and coding theory deals with finding a certain kind of path along the edges of a hypercube. This path starts at one corner and travels along the edges to as many corners as it can reach. After it gets to a new corner, the previous corner and all of its neighbors must be marked as unusable. The path must never travel to a corner which has been marked unusable.

In other words, a snake is a connected open path in the hypercube where each node has exactly two neighbors that are also in the path, with the exception of the first and last nodes, which each has only one neighbor in the path. The rule for generating a snake is that a node in the hypercube may be visited if it is connected to the current node and it is not a neighbor of any previously visited node in the snake, other than the current node.

In geometry, a tesseract or 4-cube is a four-dimensional hypercube, analogous to a two-dimensional square and a three-dimensional cube. Just as the perimeter of the square consists of four edges and the surface of the cube consists of six square faces, the hypersurface of the tesseract consists of eight cubical cells, meeting at right angles. The tesseract is one of the six convex regular 4-polytopes.

The tesseract is also called an 8-cell, C₈, (regular) octachoron, or cubic prism. It is the four-dimensional measure polytope, taken as a unit for hypervolume. Coxeter labels it the γ₄ polytope. The term hypercube without a dimension reference is frequently treated as a synonym for this specific polytope.