Coordinates

The natural cartesian coordinates of a 4-polytope centered at the origin of 4-space occur in different frames of reference, depending on the long radius (center-to-vertex) chosen.

Structure

Constructions

The 120-cell incorporates the geometries of every convex regular polytope in the first four dimensions (except the polygons {7} and above). As the sixth and last convex regular 4-polytope,^{[lower-alpha 2]} it contains inscribed instances of its four predecessors (recursively). It also contains inscribed instances of the first in the sequence, the 5-cell, which is not found in any of its other successors.^[14]

Dual 600-cells

Five tetrahedra inscribed in a dodecahedron. Five opposing tetrahedra (not shown) can also be inscribed.

Since the 120-cell is the dual of the 600-cell, it can be constructed from the 600-cell by placing its 600 vertices at the center of volume of each of the 600 tetrahedral cells. From a 600-cell of unit long radius, this results in a 120-cell of slightly smaller long radius (φ²/√8 ≈ 0.926) and edge length of exactly 1/4. Thus the unit-edge-length 120-cell (with long radius √2φ² ≈ 3.702) can be constructed in this manner just inside a 600-cell of long radius 4.

One of the five distinct cubes inscribed in the dodecahedron (dashed lines). Two opposing tetrahedra (not shown) lie inscribed in each cube, so ten distinct tetrahedra (one from each 600-cell in the 120-cell) are inscribed in the dodecahedron.^{[lower-alpha 9]}

Reciprocally, the 120-cell whose coordinates are given above of edge length 2/φ² = 3−√5 ≈ 0.764 and long radius √8 = 2√2 ≈ 2.828 can be constructed just outside a 600-cell of slightly smaller long radius, by placing the center of each dodecahedral cell at one of the 120 600-cell vertices. The 600-cell must have long radius φ², which is smaller than √8 in the same ratio of ≈ 0.926; it is in the golden ratio to the edge length of the 600-cell, so that must be φ.

As a configuration

This configuration matrix represents the 120-cell. The rows and columns correspond to vertices, edges, faces, and cells. The diagonal numbers say how many of each element occur in the whole 120-cell. The nondiagonal numbers say how many of the column's element occur in or at the row's element.^[17][18]

${\displaystyle {\begin{bmatrix}{\begin{matrix}600&4&6&4\\2&1200&3&3\\5&5&720&2\\20&30&12&120\end{matrix}}\end{bmatrix}}}$

Here is the configuration expanded with k-face elements and k-figures. The diagonal element counts are the ratio of the full Coxeter group order, 14400, divided by the order of the subgroup with mirror removal.

H4		k-face	fk	f0	f1	f2	f3	k-fig	Notes
A3		( )	f0	600	4	6	4	{3,3}	H4/A3 = 14400/24 = 600
A1A2		{ }	f1	2	720	3	3	{3}	H4/A2A1 = 14400/6/2 = 1200
H2A1		{5}	f2	5	5	1200	2	{ }	H4/H2A1 = 14400/10/2 = 720
H3		{5,3}	f3	20	30	12	120	( )	H4/H3 = 14400/120 = 120

Layered stereographic projection

The cell locations lend themselves to a hyperspherical description. Pick an arbitrary dodecahedron and label it the "north pole". Twelve great circle meridians (four cells long) radiate out in 3 dimensions, converging at the fifth "south pole" cell. This skeleton accounts for 50 of the 120 cells (2 + 4 × 12).

Starting at the North Pole, we can build up the 120-cell in 9 latitudinal layers, with allusions to terrestrial 2-sphere topography in the table below. With the exception of the poles, the centroids of the cells of each layer lie on a separate 2-sphere, with the equatorial centroids lying on a great 2-sphere. The centroids of the 30 equatorial cells form the vertices of an icosidodecahedron, with the meridians (as described above) passing through the center of each pentagonal face. The cells labeled "interstitial" in the following table do not fall on meridian great circles.

The cells of layers 2, 4, 6 and 8 are located over the faces of the pole cell. The cells of layers 3 and 7 are located directly over the vertices of the pole cell. The cells of layer 5 are located over the edges of the pole cell.

Intertwining rings

Two intertwining rings of the 120-cell.

Two orthogonal rings in a cell-centered projection

The 120-cell can be partitioned into 12 disjoint 10-cell great circle rings, forming a discrete/quantized Hopf fibration.^[21] Starting with one 10-cell ring, one can place another ring alongside it that spirals around the original ring one complete revolution in ten cells. Five such 10-cell rings can be placed adjacent to the original 10-cell ring. Although the outer rings "spiral" around the inner ring (and each other), they actually have no helical torsion. They are all equivalent. The spiraling is a result of the 3-sphere curvature. The inner ring and the five outer rings now form a six ring, 60-cell solid torus. One can continue adding 10-cell rings adjacent to the previous ones, but it's more instructive to construct a second torus, disjoint from the one above, from the remaining 60 cells, that interlocks with the first. The 120-cell, like the 3-sphere, is the union of these two (Clifford) tori. If the center ring of the first torus is a meridian great circle as defined above, the center ring of the second torus is the equatorial great circle that is centered on the meridian circle.^[22] Also note that the spiraling shell of 50 cells around a center ring can be either left handed or right handed. It's just a matter of partitioning the cells in the shell differently, i.e. picking another set of disjoint great circles.

Other great circle constructs

There is another great circle path of interest that alternately passes through opposing cell vertices, then along an edge. This path consists of 6 cells and 6 edges. Both the above great circle paths have dual great circle paths in the 600-cell. The 10 cell face to face path above maps to a 10 vertices path solely traversing along edges in the 600-cell, forming a decagon. The alternating cell/edge path above maps to a path consisting of 12 tetrahedrons alternately meeting face to face then vertex to vertex (six triangular bipyramids) in the 600-cell. This latter path corresponds to a ring of six icosahedra meeting face to face in the snub 24-cell (or icosahedral pyramids in the 600-cell).

Orthogonal projections

Orthogonal projections of the 120-cell can be done in 2D by defining two orthonormal basis vectors for a specific view direction. The 30-gonal projection was made in 1963 by B. L.Chilton.^[23]

The H3 decagonal projection shows the plane of the van Oss polygon.

Orthographic projections by Coxeter planes

H4	-	F4
[30]	[20]	[12]
H3	A2 / B3 / D4	A3 / B2
[10]	[6]	[4]

3-dimensional orthogonal projections can also be made with three orthonormal basis vectors, and displayed as a 3d model, and then projecting a certain perspective in 3D for a 2d image.

3D orthographic projections

3D isometric projection

Animated 4D rotation

Perspective projections

These projections use perspective projection, from a specific view point in four dimensions, and projecting the model as a 3D shadow. Therefore, faces and cells that look larger are merely closer to the 4D viewpoint. Schlegel diagrams use perspective to show four-dimensional figures, choosing a point above a specific cell, thus making the cell as the envelope of the 3D model, and other cells are smaller seen inside it. Stereographic projection use the same approach, but are shown with curved edges, representing the polytope as a tiling of a 3-sphere.

A comparison of perspective projections from 3D to 2D is shown in analogy.

Comparison with regular dodecahedron

Projection	Dodecahedron	Dodecaplex
Schlegel diagram	12 pentagon faces in the plane	120 dodecahedral cells in 3-space
Stereographic projection		With transparent faces

Perspective projection
	Cell-first perspective projection at 5 times the distance from the center to a vertex, with these enhancements applied: Nearest dodecahedron to the 4D viewpoint rendered in yellow The 12 dodecahedra immediately adjoining it rendered in cyan; The remaining dodecahedra rendered in green; Cells facing away from the 4D viewpoint (those lying on the "far side" of the 120-cell) culled to minimize clutter in the final image.
	Vertex-first perspective projection at 5 times the distance from center to a vertex, with these enhancements: Four cells surrounding nearest vertex shown in 4 colors Nearest vertex shown in white (center of image where 4 cells meet) Remaining cells shown in transparent green Cells facing away from 4D viewpoint culled for clarity
	A 3D projection of a 120-cell performing a simple rotation.
	A 3D projection of a 120-cell performing a simple rotation (from the inside).
	Animated 4D rotation

H₄ polytopes

The 120-cell is one of 15 regular and uniform polytopes with the same symmetry [3,3,5]:

H4 family polytopes
120-cell	rectified 120-cell	truncated 120-cell	cantellated 120-cell	runcinated 120-cell	cantitruncated 120-cell	runcitruncated 120-cell	omnitruncated 120-cell
{5,3,3}	r{5,3,3}	t{5,3,3}	rr{5,3,3}	t0,3{5,3,3}	tr{5,3,3}	t0,1,3{5,3,3}	t0,1,2,3{5,3,3}
600-cell	rectified 600-cell	truncated 600-cell	cantellated 600-cell	bitruncated 600-cell	cantitruncated 600-cell	runcitruncated 600-cell	omnitruncated 600-cell
{3,3,5}	r{3,3,5}	t{3,3,5}	rr{3,3,5}	2t{3,3,5}	tr{3,3,5}	t0,1,3{3,3,5}	t0,1,2,3{3,3,5}

{p,3,3} polytopes

The 120-cell is similar to three regular 4-polytopes: the 5-cell {3,3,3} and tesseract {4,3,3} of Euclidean 4-space, and the hexagonal tiling honeycomb {6,3,3} of hyperbolic space. All of these have a tetrahedral vertex figure {3,3}:

{p,3,3} polytopes
Space		S3			H3
Form		Finite			Paracompact	Noncompact
Name		{3,3,3}	{4,3,3}	{5,3,3}	{6,3,3}	{7,3,3}	{8,3,3}	...{∞,3,3}
Image
Cells {p,3}		{3,3}	{4,3}	{5,3}	{6,3}	{7,3}	{8,3}	{∞,3}

{5,3,p} polytopes

The 120-cell is a part of a sequence of 4-polytopes and honeycombs with dodecahedral cells:

{5,3,p} polytopes
Space	S3	H3
Form	Finite	Compact		Paracompact	Noncompact
Name	{5,3,3}	{5,3,4}	{5,3,5}	{5,3,6}	{5,3,7}	{5,3,8}	... {5,3,∞}
Image
Vertex figure	{3,3}	{3,4}	{3,5}	{3,6}	{3,7}	{3,8}	{3,∞}

Davis 120-cell

The Davis 120-cell, introduced by Davis (1985), is a compact 4-dimensional hyperbolic manifold obtained by identifying opposite faces of the 120-cell, whose universal cover gives the regular honeycomb {5,3,3,5} of 4-dimensional hyperbolic space.