Unfoldings and Nets of Regular Polytopes

Abstract

Over a decade ago, it was shown that every edge unfolding of the Platonic solids was without self-overlap, yielding a valid net. We consider this property for regular polytopes in arbitrary dimensions, notably the simplex, cube, and orthoplex. It was recently proven that all unfoldings of the $n$-cube yield nets. We show this is also true for the $n$-simplex and the $4$-orthoplex but demonstrate its surprising failure for any orthoplex of higher dimension.

12 pages, 6 figures