From the current New Yorker,
a link for Katherine Neville —
From the current New Yorker,
a link for Katherine Neville —
At Hiroshima on March 9, 2018, Aitchison discussed another
"hexagonal array" with two added points… not at the center, as
in the Gell-Mann picture above, but rather at the ends of one of
a cube's four diagonal axes of symmetry.
See some related illustrations below.
Fans of the fictional "Transfiguration College" in the play
"Heroes of the Fourth Turning" may recall that August 6,
another Hiroshima date, was the Feast of the Transfiguration.
The exceptional role of 0 and ∞ in Aitchison's diagram is echoed
by the occurence of these symbols in the "knight" labeling of a
Miracle Octad Generator octad —
Transposition of 0 and ∞ in the knight coordinatization
induces the symplectic polarity of PG(3,2) discussed by
(for instance) Anne Duncan in 1968.
Exercise: Use the Guitart 7-cycles below to relate the 56 triples
in an 8-set (such as the eightfold cube) to the 56 triangles in
a well-known Klein-quartic hyperbolic-plane tiling. Then use
the correspondence of the triples with the 56 spreads of PG(3,2)
to construct M24.
Click image below to download a Guitart PowerPoint presentation.
See as well earlier posts also tagged Triangles, Spreads, Mathieu.
For PSL(2,7), this is ((49-1)(49-7))/((7-1)(2))=168.
The group GL(3,2), also of order 168, acts naturally
on the set of seven cube-slicings below —
Another way to picture the seven natural slicings —
Application of the above images to picturing the
isomorphism of PSL(2,7) with GL(3,2) —
For a more detailed proof, see . . .
Found today in an Internet image search, from the website of
an anonymous amateur mathematics enthusiast —
Forming Gray codes in the eightfold cube with the eight
I Ching trigrams (bagua ) —
This journal on Nov. 7, 2016 —
A different sort of cube, from the makers of the recent
Netflix miniseries "Maniac" —
See also Rubik in this journal.
Click to enlarge:
Above are the 7 frames of an animated gif from a Wikipedia article.
* For the Furey of the title, see a July 20 Quanta Magazine piece —
See also the eightfold cube in this journal.
"Before time began . . . ." — Optimus Prime
From a post of July 25, 2008, “56 Triangles,” on the Klein quartic
and the eightfold cube —
“Baez’s discussion says that the Klein quartic’s 56 triangles
can be partitioned into 7 eight-triangle Egan ‘cubes’ that
correspond to the 7 points of the Fano plane in such a way
that automorphisms of the Klein quartic correspond to
automorphisms of the Fano plane. Show that the
56 triangles within the eightfold cube can also be partitioned
into 7 eight-triangle sets that correspond to the 7 points of the
Fano plane in such a way that (affine) transformations of the
eightfold cube induce (projective) automorphisms of the Fano plane.”
Related material from 1975 —
More recently …
The assignments page for a graduate algebra course at Cornell
last fall had a link to the eightfold cube:
A KUNSTforum.as article online today (translation by Google) —
Update of Sept. 7, 2016: The corrections have been made,
except for the misspelling "Cullinan," which was caused by
Google translation, not by KUNSTforum.
The following page quotes "Raiders of the Lost Crucible,"
a Log24 post from Halloween 2015.
From KUNSTforum.as, a Norwegian art quarterly, issue no. 1 of 2016.
Related posts — See Lyche Eightfold.
An eightfold cube appears in this detail
of a photo by Josefine Lyche of her
installation "4D Ambassador" at the
Norwegian Sculpture Biennial 2015 —
(Detail from private Instagram photo.)
Catalog description of installation —
Google Translate version —
In a small bedroom to Foredragssalen populate
Josefine Lyche exhibition with a group sculptures
that are part of the work group 4D Ambassador
(2014-2015). Together they form an installation
where she uses light to amplify the feeling of
stepping into a new dimension, for which the title
suggests, this "ambassadors" for a dimension we
normally do not have access to. "Ambassadors"
physical forms presents nonphysical phenomena.
Lyches works have in recent years been placed
in something one might call an "esoteric direction"
in contemporary art, and defines itself this
sculpture group humorous as "glam-minimalist."
She has in many of his works returned to basic
geometric shapes, with hints to the occult,
"new space-age", mathematics and where
everything in between.
See also Lyche + "4D Ambassador" in this journal and
her website page with a 2012 version of that title.
A search today (Élie Cartan's birthday) for material related to triality*
yielded references to something that has been called a Bhargava cube .
Two pages from a 2006 paper by Bhargava—


Bhargava's reference [4] above for "the story of the cube" is to…
Higher Composition Laws I:
A New View on Gauss Composition,
and Quadratic Generalizations
Manjul Bhargava
The Annals of Mathematics
Second Series, Vol. 159, No. 1 (Jan., 2004), pp. 217-250
Published by: Annals of Mathematics
Article Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3597249
A brief account in the context of embedding problems (click to enlarge)—
For more ways of slicing a cube,
see The Eightfold Cube —
* Note (1) some remarks by Tony Smith
related to the above Dynkin diagram
and (2) another colorful variation on the diagram.
For the bricks of the title, see other posts tagged Brick Space.
For some cubes* and flowers, see below.
Combining features of the above two images, one might picture the 24
cells of the 4×6 array underlying the Curtis Miracle Octad Generator
(MOG) as each containing an eightfold cube, pictured as above with seven
of its subcubes showing and an eighth subcube hidden behind them.
The seven visible subcubes may be colored, as in the Curtis image of
the Klein map, with seven distinct colors… corresponding to the seven
edge-colors used in the Curtis-Klein map. Each of the seven visible
subcubes in a cell may also be labeled, on its visible faces, with a symbol
denoting one of the 24 points of the projective line over GF(23), just as the
faces in the Curtis-Klein map are labeled. The hidden subcube in each cell
may be regarded as also so labeled, by the MOG label of the cell's position.
There is then enough information in the array's eightfold cubes' colors and
labels to construct the seven generating permutations of M24 described by
Curtis, and the 24 array cells may be regarded as now containing 24 distinct
entities — which perhaps might be called "octoids."
Those desiring a more decorative approach may replace the 24 labeled cubes
with 24 labeled "flowers." Each flower — like the map's symmetric seven
"petals" and the central "infinity heptagon" they surround — forms an octad.
Related Illustrations . . .
* See as well posts tagged Mathieu Cube . . .
Related material —
The 56 triangles of the eightfold cube . . .
Image from Christmas Day 2005.
Post last revised: December 30, 2025 @ 21:30 E.S.T.
From a post on the Feast of St. Nicholas, 2018,
"The Mathieu Cube of Iain Aitchison" —
Compare and contrast . . .
The Supercube of Solomon Golomb.
Note that the number 8, a cube, may be represented as
either a literal "eightfold cube" — a 2x2x2 array — or as,
in the manner of R. T. Curtis, a 4-row 2-column "brick."
Related art . . .
Some will prefer a more dramatic approach to uniting three cubes . . .

For the late Brian O'Doherty, from posts now tagged "Pless Birthday 2022" —
This post was suggested by an obituary of O'Doherty and by
"The Life and Work of Vera Stepen Pless" in
Notices of the American Mathematical Society , December 2022.
The new URL supercube.space forwards to http://box759.wordpress.com/.
The term supercube is from a 1982 article by Solomon W. Golomb.
The related new URL supercube.group forwards to a page that
describes how the 2x2x2 (or eightfold, or "super") cube's natural
underlying automorphism group is Klein's simple group of order 168.
For further context, see the new URL supercube.art.
For some background, see the phrase Cube Space in this journal.
Shown below is an illustration from "The Puzzle Layout Problem" —
Exercise: Using the above numerals 1 through 24
(with 23 as 0 and 24 as ∞) to represent the points
∞, 0, 1, 2, 3 … 22 of the projective line over GF(23),
reposition the labels 1 through 24 in the above illustration
so that they appropriately* illustrate the cube-parts discussed
by Iain Aitchison in his March 2018 Hiroshima slides on
cube-part permutations by the Mathieu group M24.
A note for Northrop Frye —
Interpenetration in the eightfold cube — the three midplanes —
A deeper example of interpenetration:
Aitchison has shown that the Mathieu group M24 has a natural
action on the 24 center points of the subsquares on the eightfold
cube's six faces (four such points on each of the six faces). Thus
the 759 octads of the Steiner system S(5, 8, 24) interpenetrate
on the surface of the cube.
* "Appropriately" — I.e. , so that the Aitchison cube octads correspond
exactly, via the projective-point labels, to the Curtis MOG octads.
The resemblance to the eightfold cube is, of course,
completely coincidental.
Some background from the literature —
A brief summary of the eightfold cube is now at octad.us.
See also Espacement and The Thing and I.
This journal ten years ago today —
Surprise Package

From a talk by a Melbourne mathematician on March 9, 2018 —
The source — Talk II below —
Search Results
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Related material —
The 56 triangles of the eightfold cube . . .
Image from Christmas Day 2005.
Clicking on Zong in the above post leads to a 2005 article
in the Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society .
See also the eightfold cube and interality .
A New, Improved Version of Quantum Suffering !
Background for group actions on the eightfold cube —
See also other posts now tagged Quantum Suffering
as well as — related to the image above of the Great Wall —
See Eightfold Froebel.

James Propp in the current Math Horizons on the eightfold cube —
For another puerile approach to the eightfold cube,
see Cube Space, 1984-2003 (Oct. 24, 2008).
Foreword by Sir Michael Atiyah —
"Poincaré said that science is no more a collection of facts
than a house is a collection of bricks. The facts have to be
ordered or structured, they have to fit a theory, a construct
(often mathematical) in the human mind. . . .
… Mathematics may be art, but to the general public it is
a black art, more akin to magic and mystery. This presents
a constant challenge to the mathematical community: to
explain how art fits into our subject and what we mean by beauty.
In attempting to bridge this divide I have always found that
architecture is the best of the arts to compare with mathematics.
The analogy between the two subjects is not hard to describe
and enables abstract ideas to be exemplified by bricks and mortar,
in the spirit of the Poincaré quotation I used earlier."
— Sir Michael Atiyah, "The Art of Mathematics"
in the AMS Notices , January 2010
Judy Bass, Los Angeles Times , March 12, 1989 —
"Like Rubik's Cube, The Eight demands to be pondered."
As does a figure from 1984, Cullinane's Cube —
For natural group actions on the Cullinane cube,
see "The Eightfold Cube" and
"A Simple Reflection Group of Order 168."
See also the recent post Cube Bricks 1984 —
Related remark from the literature —
Note that only the static structure is described by Felsner, not the
168 group actions discussed by Cullinane. For remarks on such
group actions in the literature, see "Cube Space, 1984-2003."
(From Anatomy of a Cube, Sept. 18, 2011.)
The following picture provides a new visual approach to
the order-8 quaternion group's automorphisms.
Click the above image for some context.
Here the cube is called "eightfold" because the eight vertices,
like the eight subcubes of a 2×2×2 cube,* are thought of as
independently movable. See The Eightfold Cube.
See also…
Related material: Robin Chapman and Karen E. Smith
on the quaternion group's automorphisms.
* See Margaret Wertheim's Christmas Eve remarks on mathematics
and the following eightfold cube from an institute she co-founded—

Photo by Norman Brosterman
fom the Inventing Kindergarten
exhibit at The Institute for Figuring
(co-founded by Margaret Wertheim)
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