Yesterday we did a fun project exploring a permutohedron:
A Morning with the permutohedron
Last night I thought it might be neat to have the kids try to label the vertices of a permutohedron with the permutations represented by each vertex. Fortunately, it was possible to build a truncated octahedron with the green Zometool struts:
We started out today’s project by talking about the rules for making a permutohedron in different dimensions. Here I used the labeling of the permutation of 3 objects as a base case to make sure the boys understood the directions properly.
Next I had the boys label each vertex of the permutahedron with the permutation of {1,2,3,4} that the vertex represented. Then, they talked about the process of figuring out the right labels.
I’m sorry that the video below runs 10 min, but if you listen to the whole discussion I think you’ll see that seemingly straightforward act of labeling these vertexes is a terrific mathematical exercise for kids.
Mike's Math Page 