On the realization space of the cube

We prove that the realization space of the d-dimensional cube is contractible. For this we first show that any two realizations are connected by a finite sequence of projective transformations and normal transformations. As an application we use this fact to define an analog of the connected sum construction for cubical d-polytopes, and apply this construction to certain cubical d-polytopes to conclude that the rays spanned by f-vectors of cubical d-polytopes are dense in Adin’s cone. The connectivity result on cubes extends to any product of simplices, and further, it shows the respective realization spaces are contractible.