A regular octahedron is formed by joining the centers of adjoining faces of a cube. The ratio of the volume of the octahedron to the volume of the cube is
$\mathrm{(A) \frac{\sqrt{3}}{12} } \qquad \mathrm{(B) \frac{\sqrt{6}}{16} } \qquad \mathrm{(C) \frac{1}{6} } \qquad \mathrm{(D) \frac{\sqrt{2}}{8} } \qquad \mathrm{(E) \frac{1}{4} }$

Call the length of a side of the cube x. Thus, the volume of the cube is $x^3$. We can then find that a side of this regular octahedron is the square root of $(\frac{x}{2})^2$+$(\frac{x}{2})^2$ which is equivalent to $\frac{x\sqrt{2}}{2}$. Using our general formula for the volume of a regular octahedron of side length a, which is $\frac{a^3\sqrt2}{3}$, we get that the volume of this octahedron is...
$(\frac{x\sqrt{2}}{2})^3 \rightarrow \frac{x^3\sqrt{2}}{4} \rightarrow \frac{x^3\sqrt{2}}{4}*\frac{\sqrt{2}}{3} \rightarrow \frac{2x^3}{12}=\frac{x^3}{6}$
Comparing the ratio of the volume of the octahedron to the cube is…
$\frac{\frac{x^3}{6}}{x^3} \rightarrow \boxed{\frac{1}{6}}$