Centered octahedral number
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Hay construction of an octahedron by 129 cubes
A centered octahedral number or Hay octahedral number is a figurate number that counts the
number of points of a three-dimensional integer lattice that lie inside an octahedron centered at the
origin.[1] The same numbers are special cases of the Delannoy numbers, which count certain two-
dimensional lattice paths.[2] The Hay octahedral numbers are named after Ren Just Hay.
Contents
1 History
2 Formula
3 Alternative interpretations
4 References
History
The name "Hay octahedral number" comes from the work of Ren Just Hay, a
French mineralogist active in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. His "Hay construction"
approximates an octahedron as a polycube, formed by accreting concentric layers of cubes onto a
central cube. The centered octahedral numbers count the number of cubes used by this
construction.[3] Hay proposed this construction, and several related constructions of other
polyhedra, as a model for the structure of crystalline minerals.[4][5]
Formula
The number of three-dimensional lattice points within n steps of the origin is given by the formula
The first few of these numbers (for n = 0, 1, 2, ...) are
1, 7, 25, 63, 129, 231, 377, 575, 833, 1159, [6]
The generating function of the centered octahedral numbers is[6][7]
The centered octahedral numbers obey the recurrence relation[1]
They may also be computed as the sums of pairs of consecutive octahedral numbers.
Alternative interpretations
63 Delannoy paths through a 3 3 grid
The octahedron in the three-dimensional integer lattice, whose number of lattice points is counted by
the centered octahedral number, is a metric ball for three-dimensional taxicab geometry, a geometry
in which distance is measured by the sum of the coordinatewise distances rather than by Euclidean
distance. For this reason, Luther & Mertens (2011) call the centered octahedral numbers "the volume
of the crystal ball".[7]
The same numbers can be viewed as figurate numbers in a different way, as the centered figurate
numbers generated by a pentagonal pyramid. That is, if one forms a sequence of concentric shells in
three dimensions, where the first shell consists of a single point, the second shell consists of the six
vertices of a pentagonal pyramid, and each successive shell forms a larger pentagonal pyramid with
a triangular number of points on each triangular face and a pentagonal number of points on the
pentagonal face, then the total number of points in this configuration is a centered octahedral
number.[1]
The centered octahedral numbers are also the Delannoy numbers of the form D(3,n). As for
Delannoy numbers more generally, these numbers count the number of paths from the southwest
corner of a 3 n grid to the northeast corner, using steps that go one unit east, north, or northeast. [2]
References
1. ^ Jump up to:a b c Deza, Elena; Deza, Michel (2012), Figurate Numbers, World Scientific,
pp. 107109, 132, ISBN 9789814355483.
2. ^ Jump up to:a b Sulanke, Robert A. (2003), "Objects counted by the central Delannoy
numbers" (PDF), Journal of Integer Sequences, 6 (1), Article 03.1.5, MR 1971435.
3. Jump up^ Fathauer, Robert W. (2013), "Iterative arrangements of polyhedra Relationships
to classical fractals and Hay constructions", Proceedings of Bridges 2013: Mathematics, Music, Art,
Architecture, Culture(PDF)
4. Jump up^ Maitte, Bernard (2013), "The Construction of Group Theory in Crystallography", in
Barbin, Evelyne; Pisano, Raffaele, The Dialectic Relation Between Physics and Mathematics in the
XIXth Century, History of Mechanism and Machine Science, 16, Springer, pp. 1
30, ISBN 9789400753808, doi:10.1007/978-94-007-5380-8_1. See in particular p. 10.
5. Jump up^ Hay, Ren-Just (1784), Essai d'une thorie sur la structure des crystaux (in
French). See in particular pp. 1314. As cited by Weisstein, Eric W. "Hay [sic]
Construction". MathWorld.
6. ^ Jump up to:a b "Sloane's A001845 : Centered octahedral numbers (crystal ball sequence for
cubic lattice)". The On-Line Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences. OEIS Foundation.
7. ^ Jump up to:a b Luther, Sebastian; Mertens, Stephan (2011), "Counting lattice animals in high
dimensions", Journal of Statistical Mechanics: Theory and Experiment, 2011 (9):
P09026, arXiv:1106.1078
