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Icosahedron code

Alternative Names: Snub tetrahedron code.

Description

Spherical \((3,12,2-2/\sqrt{5})\) code whose codewords are the vertices of the icosahedron (alternatively, the centers of the faces of a dodecahedron, the icosahedron’s dual polytope).

Protection

Optimal configuration of 12 points in 3D space [1; pg. 76]. Saturates the absolute bound for antipodal codes [1; pg. 314].

Notes

See post by J. Baez for more details.See the corresponding Bendwavy database entry [2].

Cousins

References

[1]
T. Ericson and V. A. Zinoviev, eds., Codes on Euclidean Spheres (Elsevier, 2001)
[2]
R. Klitzing, “Ike”, Polytopes & their Incidence Matrices URL
[3]
P. Delsarte, J. M. Goethals, and J. J. Seidel, “Spherical codes and designs”, Geometriae Dedicata 6, 363 (1977) DOI
[4]
J. Baez, “Golay Code”, Visual Insight (2015) URL
[5]
A. Holden, “Shapes, Space, and Symmetry”, (1971) DOI
[6]
J. H. Conway and N. J. A. Sloane, Sphere Packings, Lattices and Groups (Springer New York, 1999) DOI
[7]
L. Rastanawi and G. Rote, “Towards a Geometric Understanding of the 4-Dimensional Point Groups”, (2022) arXiv:2205.04965
[8]
A. B. Khesin, J. Z. Lu, and P. W. Shor, “Universal Graph Representation of Stabilizer Codes”, PRX Quantum 6, (2025) arXiv:2411.14448 DOI
[9]
E. Kubischta and I. Teixeira, “Family of Quantum Codes with Exotic Transversal Gates”, Physical Review Letters 131, (2023) arXiv:2305.07023 DOI
[10]
N. N. Andreev, “An extremal property of the icosahedron”, East Journal on Approximations 2(4), 459-462 (1996)
[11]
H. Cohn and A. Kumar, “Universally optimal distribution of points on spheres”, Journal of the American Mathematical Society 20, 99 (2006) arXiv:math/0607446 DOI
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Zoo Code ID: icosahedron

Cite as:
“Icosahedron code”, The Error Correction Zoo (V. V. Albert & P. Faist, eds.), 2026. https://errorcorrectionzoo.org/c/icosahedron, arXiv:2606.11484
BibTeX:
@incollection{eczoo_icosahedron,
title={Icosahedron code},
booktitle={The Error Correction Zoo},
year={2026},
editor={Albert, Victor V. and Faist, Philippe},
eprint={2606.11484},
doi={10.48550/arXiv.2606.11484},
url={https://errorcorrectionzoo.org/c/icosahedron}
}
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Permanent link:
https://errorcorrectionzoo.org/c/icosahedron

Cite as:

“Icosahedron code”, The Error Correction Zoo (V. V. Albert & P. Faist, eds.), 2026. https://errorcorrectionzoo.org/c/icosahedron, arXiv:2606.11484

Github: https://github.com/errorcorrectionzoo/eczoo_data/edit/main/codes/classical/spherical/polytope/3d/icosahedron.yml.