Cube Definition and Meaning
In geometry, a cube is a body made up of six faces that are square. The peculiarity of these bodies is that all the faces are congruent, they are arranged in parallel and in pairs, and they have four sides.
Taking these characteristics into account, it is possible to place the cubes in different groups. These are platonic solids, convex polyhedra, parallelepipeds, hexahedrons, and prisms, all qualifications referring to different properties of cubes.
For example: “In my geometry test, the teacher asked me to draw three cubes of different sizes”, “I bought a coffee table and two cube-shaped benches for the living room”, “The chef surprised the jury with a cube of white rice dipped in ginger and honey sauce. ”
A die is a cube-shaped object.
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Cube shaped elements
It is possible to find numerous cube-shaped objects. Among the most common are the dice that are used in a large number of games. The dice are usually cubes that, on each of their faces, include a number. In this way, when someone throws a die, he can get six different numbers: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6.
Other cubes that we usually use in everyday life are bouillon cubes (or bouillon cubes ) and containers known as buckets or buckets : “Please, pass me a bucket of chicken, I want to flavor this soup” , ” I’m going to fill the bucket with soapy water to clean the patio”.
Rubik’s cube is a very popular puzzle.
The concept in mathematics
For mathematics, the third power of a number is known as the cube. This means that to cube a quantity consists of multiplying it three times by itself: 5 cubed is equal to 5 x 5 x 5 (125).
This falls under the concept of potentiation or power, an operation that requires two terms: a base and an exponent. Usually, the number of the exponent is read as if it were a feminine term, so that the base is raised ” to the four”, for example, instead of ” to the four”.
The exponent three is special, in that it belongs to a very small group together with two, because they are the only ones that receive a different name when reading their operations : raising two is said «squared», while which for three is said “cubed”, as mentioned above.
The cube in computer generated graphics
In the field of computer generated graphics, the cube is the most representative figure, the source of all three-dimensional models. It could be said that it is the equivalent of the pixel in the world of two dimensions, where it is considered the smallest unit. Of course, this is not entirely true for the cube, since it is made up of eight vertices and these are the elements that are impossible to reduce in the three-dimensional universe.
We should also not forget about polygons, which in three-dimensional design can be understood as figures with at least three vertices and are also known as “faces”. The cube is made up of six polygons with four vertices, or eight with three. The process by which images created in three dimensions reach the monitor is known as rasterization.
In a few words, we can say that in a program that allows us to create vectorial figures there are no pixels but simply mathematical and physical operations with which it is possible to position all the vertices and relate them to give rise to the appearance of the faces, in addition to lighting and calculate the direction in which they look, among many other things. Within the three-dimensional universe, the characteristics of the monitor do not matter, which affect what the user sees once the scene is converted to pixels; The higher the resolution, the sharper the scene will be, but internally it will always be the same.