The original version of this story appeared in Quanta Magazine. If you want to tile a bathroom floor, square tiles are the simplest option—they fit together without any gaps in a grid pattern that can ...
Ever wanted an actual one-of-a-kind bathroom or kitchen? Well, mathematicians have found the perfect tile for you. A team from the University of Arkansas have discovered the first shape that can cover ...
Creatively tiling a bathroom floor isn’t just a stressful task for DIY home renovators. It is also one of the hardest problems in mathematics. For centuries, experts have been studying the special ...
Infinitely many copies of a 13-sided shape can be arranged with no overlaps or gaps in a pattern that never repeats. David Smith, Joseph Samuel Myers, Craig S. Kaplan and Chaim Goodman-Strauss (CC BY ...
What just happened? A group of mathematicians created a "new" polygon previously known to exist only in theory. It's a 13-sided shape that they dubbed "the hat," even though it only vaguely resembles ...
A new 13-sided shape is the first example of an elusive "einstein" — a single shape that can be tiled infinitely without repeating a pattern. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn ...
Remember the graph paper you used at school, the kind that’s covered with tiny squares? It’s the perfect illustration of what mathematicians call a “periodic tiling of space”, with shapes covering an ...