How many edges does a cube have?

A cube is defined as a three-dimensional shape with six square faces, where all edges are equal in length and all angles are right angles. To determine how many edges a cube has, we can visualize or sketch the shape.

Starting from one vertex, a cube has three edges extending from that point—one leading in each of the three dimensions (length, width, height). Since a cube has eight vertices, we could initially think of this multiplication. However, each edge is shared between two vertices, so this method would indeed overcount the total.

A more straightforward approach is to rely on the standard properties of a cube. Each of the six faces is a square, and each square has four edges. Since each edge is counted twice (once for each face it belongs to), we can simply calculate that six squares at four edges each give us a total of 24 edges; however, we must divide by 2 (to account for the double counting), which leads us to the total number of distinct edges, 12.

Therefore, the cube has precisely 12 edges, affirming that the correct answer reflects the fundamental properties of the cube’s geometry.