Recall that an abstract $n$ -simplex is an abstract simplicial complex $K$ such that $\bigcup K\in K$ and the cardinality of $\bigcup K$ is $n+1$ . It can be identified as the powerset (minus the empty set element) of a set $V_K$ of elements $v_1,\ldots, v_n$ , called the vertices of $K$ .

The barycentric subdivision of an abstract simplex $K$ is the construction of a certain abstract simplicial complex $K'$ from $K$ . $K'$ itself is called the barycentric subdivision of $K$ . Before giving the general construction, let us describe some simple cases, specifically, when $n=1,2,$ and $3$ and when $V_K$ is embedded in some ambient Euclidean space $\mathbb{R}^m$ where $m\ge n$ :

• When $n=1$ , $V_K$ is just a one-point space. We define the barycentric subdivision of $K$ to be $K$ itself: $K'=K$ .
• When $n=2$ , $V_K$ consists of two distinct points $v_1$ and $v_2$ . Take the midpoint $w$ of $v_1$ and $v_2$ . Then the barycentric subdivision $K'$ is defined to be the union of powersets of $\lbrace v_1, w\rbrace$ and $\lbrace v_2, w\rbrace$ . Abstracting this process, $K'$ can be thought of as the union of all the $2$ -simplices having $w$ as a vertex.
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• When $n=3$ , $V_K$ consists of three distinct non-collinear points, $v_1,v_2,v_3$ . We may picture them as the vertices of a triangle. From each of these vertices, draw a line connecting the vertex to the midpoint of the opposite side. This construction creates six smaller triangles, such that each pair either intersect at a common vertex or a common side. The barycentric subdivision $K'$ is defined as the union of each of these smaller triangles considered as a simplex. In other words, $K'$ is the union of the powerset of the three-point sets that correspond to these smaller triangles.
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  Abstracting this process, we may take $w$ as the barycenter of $v_1,v_2,$ and $v_3$ . Label $w=w(123)$ , so $$w(123)=\frac{1}{3}(v_1+v_2+v_3).$$ Next, take $w(12),w(23),$ and $w(13)$ as the midpoints of $(v_1,v_2)$ , $(v_2,v_3)$ and $(v_1,v_3)$ . Finally, relabel $v_1,v_2,v_3$ as $w(1),w(2),w(3)$ . We form six three-point sets: $$W(32):=\lbrace w(123), w(12), w(1) \rbrace,\quad W(31):=\lbrace w(123), w(12), w(2) \rbrace,$$ $$W(23):=\lbrace w(123), w(13), w(1) \rbrace,\quad W(21):=\lbrace w(123), w(13), w(3) \rbrace,$$ $$W(13):=\lbrace w(123), w(23), w(2) \rbrace,\quad W(12):=\lbrace w(123), w(23), w(3) \rbrace.$$ The formation of any one of these sets goes as follows:
  1. it must contain the barycenter $w(123)$ ;
  2. from $w(123)$ , pick one of the midpoints $w(12),w(23),w(13)$ to be the next point in the set;
  3. once the midpoint is chosen, pick one of the initial vertices so that the label occurs in the labeling of the midpoint. For example, if $w(23)$ were picked, only one of vertices $w(2)$ or $w(3)$ is allowed to be picked next.
  The logic behind the labeling $ab$ of $W(ab)$ comes from the fact that the labeling of the midpoint in $W(ab)$ does not contain $a$ and the labeling of the initial vertex in $W(ab)$ does not contain $b$ .

  Finally, we form $K'$ as the union of the powersets of $W(ab)$ 's.

In the last example, one can abstract the construction one step further. Since each labelled point is the barycenter of at least one of the initial vertices $v_i$ , we can uniquely identify any non-empty subset $V$ of $V_K$ with the labelled point that is the barycenter of the point(s) in $V$ . Then each $W(ab)$ above can be identified as a maximal chain (ordered by inclusion) in $K$ with $\varnothing$ deleted.

This suggests the general construction of the barycentric subdivision of an abstract $n$ -simplex.

Definition. Let $K$ be an abstract $n$ -simplex. Order $K$ by inclusion $\subseteq$ . Let $$\mathcal{C}_K:=\big\lbrace P(C) \mid C\mbox{ is a maximal chain in }K\big\rbrace.$$ The barycentric subdivision $K'$ of $K$ is: $$K'=\bigcup \mathcal{C}_K - \lbrace \varnothing\rbrace.$$

It is easy to see that every maximal chain in $K$ is an $(n-1)$ -simplex whose powerset is an $n$ -simplex (so isomorphic to $K$ ). In addition, the barycentric subdivision $K'$ of $K$ is a simplicial complex with $n!$ maximal simplices, each of which is isomorphic to $K$ .

Remark. This definition can be generalized to include the barycentric subdivision of an abstract simplicial complex. If $K$ is an abstract simplicial complex, then the barycentric subdivision $K'$ of $K$ is the union of the barycentric subdivisions of the individual maximal simplicies in $K$ . Below are two examples:

• In this example (pictured above), the maximal simplices of $K$ consist of a triangle, and two line segments.
  
  
  
• Here (pictured below), the maximal simplices are two triangles meeting at a common edge.
  
  
  

It can be shown that the barycentric subdivision $K'$ of an abstract simplicial complex $K$ can be constructed as follows: $V_{K'}:=\lbrace S\mid S\in K\rbrace$ is the set of vertices of $K'$ , and $T\in K'$ iff $T$ is a chain of simplexes in $K$ : $T=\lbrace S_1,\ldots,S_{n(T)}\rbrace$ , $S_i\subset S_j$ for $i<j$ .