The Symmetry Group of the Grand Antiprism

Abstract

The grand antiprism A is an outlier among the uniform 4-polytopes, since it is not obtainable from Wythoff’s construction. Its symmetry group G(A) has been incorrectly described as [[10,2+,10]] or even as an ‘ionic diminished Coxeter group’. In fact, G(A) is another group of order 400, namely the group ±[D10×D10]·2, in the notation of Conway and Smith. We explain all this and so correct a persistent error in the literature. This fresh look at the beautiful geometry of the polytope A is also a fine opportunity to introduce the reader to the elegance of Wythoff’s construction and to the less familiar use of quaternions to classify the finite 4-dimensional isometry groups.