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For questions about mathematical tiling.

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Does every 5-celled animal tile the plane?

An animal in the plane is a finite set of grid-aligned unit squares in $\mathbb{R}^2$. (The definition is the same as a polyomino, but where we relax the connectivity requirement.) One may ...
RavenclawPrefect's user avatar
21 votes
1 answer
1k views

Tiling rectangle with trominoes — an invariant

There are two types of trominoes, straight shapes and L-shaped. Suppose a rectangle $R$ admits at least one tiling using trominoes, with an even number of L-trominoes. EDIT: we do not admit ALL ...
Per Alexandersson's user avatar
16 votes
0 answers
391 views

Is "Escherian metamorphosis" always possible?

$\DeclareMathOperator\int{int}\DeclareMathOperator\diam{diam}\DeclareMathOperator\area{area}\DeclareMathOperator\cl{cl}\DeclareMathOperator\ran{ran}\DeclareMathOperator\dom{dom}$This is a tweaked ...
Noah Schweber's user avatar
15 votes
0 answers
573 views

Relation Between Truncated Braid Groups and Regular Tilings of the Complex and Hyperbolic Plane

This is perhaps a vague question, but hopefully there exists literature on the subject. The question is motivated by an answer I gave to this question on math.SE. There exists a rather remarkable ...
Dan Rust's user avatar
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14 votes
0 answers
417 views

Minimum number of distinct triangles for tesselating the sphere

Consider sequences of tesselations of the sphere. For instance, one such sequence might start with an icosahedron and proceed by subdividing each triangle face into 4 triangles and projecting the new ...
Arthur B's user avatar
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14 votes
0 answers
4k views

Minimum tiling of a rectangle by squares

Given the $n\times m$ rectangle, I want to compute the minimum number of integer-sided squares needed to tile it (possibly of different sizes). Is there an efficient way to calculate this?
didest's user avatar
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12 votes
0 answers
168 views

Can the optimal packing density in $\mathbb{Z}^d$ be irrational?

For a finite $S \subset \mathbb{Z}^d$, let $d_p(S)$ be its optimal packing density. That is, the maximal lower asymptotic density of $A+S$, where $A \subset \mathbb{Z}^d$ is such that $(a_1+S)\cap (...
Arsenii Sagdeev's user avatar
10 votes
0 answers
248 views

What is the tiling semigroup for an einstein "hat" tiling?

My undergraduate dissertation was on inverse semigroups and the key text I used for it was Lawson's, "Inverse Semigroups: The Theory of Partial Symmetries". In said book, Lawson describes ...
Shaun's user avatar
  • 379
10 votes
0 answers
924 views

Are aperiodic monotiles generalizable to higher dimensions?

This question is motivated by a recently released paper written by David Smith, Joseph Samuel Myers, Craig S. Kaplan, and Chaim Goodman-Strauss. It constructs the first topological disk that tiles the ...
Nicholas James's user avatar
9 votes
0 answers
291 views

Tilings in finite (not necessarily Abelian) groups

Let $G$ be a finite (not necessarily abelian) group. We call $A \subseteq G$ a right-tiling (for simplicity, a tiling) of $G$ if there exists a $B \subseteq G$ so that $$ G = \bigsqcup_{b\in B} bA.$$ ...
Anurag Sahay's user avatar
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9 votes
0 answers
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Cubing the cube - as 'perfectly' as possible

Ref: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squaring_the_square A perfect cubing of a cube is a partition of the cube into some finite number of smaller cubes that are pair-wise non-congruent. The above page ...
Nandakumar R's user avatar
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8 votes
0 answers
139 views

Inequality among domino tilings of large triomino shapes

Inspired by this question, which asks for what shape maximizes the number of domino tilings, I want to ask the following seemingly simpler question, which I have been thinking about for a while: ...
Per Alexandersson's user avatar
8 votes
0 answers
239 views

Possible structures for minimal tiling sets

Inspired by Col. Sicherman's results here, my speculations have so far outrun my expertise that I thought I might pass my question along to others who might find it equally intriguing, but perhaps ...
Zomulgustar's user avatar
7 votes
0 answers
87 views

Tiling the plane with mutually non-congruent equal area rectangles

Question: Is it possible to tile the plane with mutually non-congruent rectangles all of equal area? Note 1: If the answer is "yes" then, there could be constrained versions of the question ...
Nandakumar R's user avatar
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7 votes
0 answers
227 views

Tiling space with supertile of hypercube unfoldings

Two students in my class asked and answered what might be a novel question. It is well known that the cube has exactly $11$ edge-unfoldings (or "nets"), as shown below:         (Image from ...
Joseph O'Rourke's user avatar
6 votes
0 answers
176 views

Optimal planar net for catching convex shapes

Imagine you want to make a net out of string to filter and catch objects of a certain size, minimizing the length of string employed. (This actually arises in filtering biological impurities from ...
Joseph O'Rourke's user avatar
6 votes
0 answers
657 views

Unique domino tiling

Question: how does one enumerate all star-convex $2n$-vertex sublattices of the plane that have the unique domino-tiling property? Definitions: A subset $S$ of the $xy$-plane is star-convex if there ...
John Murray's user avatar
  • 1,090
5 votes
0 answers
108 views

Non-monotileable amenable groups

This is crossposted from MSE. We say a subset $A$ of a group $G$ is a monotile for $G$ if $G$ is a disjoint union of right translates of $A$. In his article Monotileable Amenable Groups, B. Weiss ...
Saúl RM's user avatar
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5 votes
0 answers
194 views

A puzzle with magic Egyptian tilings

Background I've recently been devising a puzzle that incorporates elements from Egyptian fractions, magic squares, and tilings. The objective of the puzzle is to tessellate a square with sides of ...
Max Lonysa Muller's user avatar
5 votes
0 answers
177 views

Tiling with triangles of same circumradius and inradius

Consider a pair of positive real numbers $r$ and $R$ with $r<R/2$. Then we can form infinitely many triangles all with circumradius $R$ and inradius $r$. For any such pair, the resulting triangles ...
Nandakumar R's user avatar
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5 votes
0 answers
154 views

If two convex polygons tile the plane, how many sides can one of them have?

The set of convex polygons which tile the plane is, as of $2017$, known: it consists of all triangles, all quadrilaterals, $15$ families of pentagons, and three families of hexagons. Euler's formula ...
RavenclawPrefect's user avatar
5 votes
0 answers
157 views

Tiling rectangles using all squares of sides 1, 2, 3, ..., n

Do integers n greater than 2 exist such that all the squares of sides 1, 2, 3, ..., n can be partitioned into two or more sets (none a singleton) each of whose squares can be used to tile a rectangle?
Bernardo Recamán Santos's user avatar
5 votes
0 answers
105 views

Hooks, monomers, dimers and Young diagrams: Part II

As promised, I've upgraded my last question. Consider the $k$-by-$n$ partition $\lambda_n=(n,\dots,n)$ and its corresponding Young diagram $Y_{n,k}$, which is a $k\times n$ rectangle of cells. Now, ...
T. Amdeberhan's user avatar
5 votes
0 answers
150 views

monomer-dimer tiling of a Young diagram

As a modest start, I propose the below problem for a special set of partitions. Perhaps it is known. Let $\lambda_n=(n,n-1,\dots,2,1)$ be the staircase partition and its corresponding Young diagram $...
T. Amdeberhan's user avatar
5 votes
0 answers
119 views

What (if anything) is the connection between the Feit-Higman Theorem and the regular plane tilings?

Here are two facts that are superficially similar. Tiling Theorem: The only regular tilings of $\mathbb{R}^2$ are achieved by triangles, squares, and hexagons. Feit-Higman Theorem: The only finite ...
GMB's user avatar
  • 1,389
5 votes
0 answers
119 views

Minimal covers instead of tilings in Maxwell Allman's problem

The question I'm going to ask is inspired by this thread. I wonder what happens if instead of tilings we consider minimal covers, i.e., families of convex closed polygons that cover the square and ...
fedja's user avatar
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5 votes
0 answers
145 views

Complexity of $\mathbb{Z}^n$ tilings

Let $\mathcal{T} \subset \mathbb{Z}^n$ be a finite set. Let $\Lambda \subset \mathbb{Z}^n$ be a full rank lattice. We say that $\mathcal{T}$ is a $\Lambda$-tile for $\mathbb{Z}^n$ if the following ...
Campello's user avatar
  • 800
5 votes
0 answers
131 views

For which sidelengths are there polyominos composed of three squares that tile the plane?

Given three naturals $a<b<c$. We consider polyominos, connected or not, which are composed of three squares of sides $a,b,c$. How can one characterize all triples $a,b,c$ for which such a ...
Wolfgang's user avatar
  • 13.4k
4 votes
0 answers
138 views

Hyponontiling Wang tiles

Call a finite collection of tiles that can tile the plane if we have to use each tile at least once tiling. Is there a collection of at least 3 tiles that is not tiling, but such that after removing ...
domotorp's user avatar
  • 18.7k
4 votes
0 answers
175 views

Can a square be partitioned into mutually non-congruent triangles all of same area and perimeter?

It is known that the plane cannot be tiled by pair-wise non-congruent triangles all having same area and same perimeter (https://arxiv.org/abs/1711.04504). Question: Can a square be partitioned into ...
Nandakumar R's user avatar
  • 5,979
4 votes
0 answers
78 views

Draw an arbitrary line on a Penrose tiling. Determine a sequence of tiles can it intersect

Let us consider a Penrose tiling of $\mathbb R^2$. Starting with an arbitrary point on the tiling, draw an arbitrary straight line. Assume that this straight line never overlaps perfectly with a ...
Darren Ong's user avatar
4 votes
0 answers
304 views

References and upper bounds for the SONNAT tiling game?

Introduction In a video released about a month ago, Pembesita describes1 a tiling game called SONNAT: Same Orientation Neighbour Not Allowed, Tiling. In the single-player game2, the player may employ ...
Max Lonysa Muller's user avatar
4 votes
0 answers
134 views

Chromatic number of rectangle tilings

Suppose we have a region of the plane tiled by finitely many rectangles. We want to color the rectangles so that two rectangles have different colors if they share a part of an edge or if they share ...
Adam Chalcraft's user avatar
4 votes
0 answers
171 views

Undecidability for hyperbolic Wang-tilings - pentagons, heptagons, octagons, oh my!

Berger proved that the problem of determining if a finite set of Wang tiles can tile the plane is undecidable. Robinson reproved Berger's result and raised the question of considering the ...
user101010's user avatar
  • 5,349
4 votes
0 answers
92 views

Possible cardinalities of spherical tiling

Suppose that we have a tiling of $n$-dimensional (I want to get answer for $n = 4$, but general result would be nice!) sphere by isometric tiles strictly contained inside the right-angled simplex. ...
Denis T's user avatar
  • 4,600
4 votes
0 answers
73 views

Unbalanced colourings of Penrose tiles

It is known that both the rhombus and kite-and-dart Penrose tilings are three-colourable, from Babilon, Robert. "3-colourability of Penrose kite-and-dart tilings." Discrete Mathematics 235, no. 1-3 (...
Darren Ong's user avatar
4 votes
0 answers
154 views

Hooks, monomers, dimers and Young diagrams: Part I

Following Richard Stanley's pointers regarding my earlier MO question, I decided to "scale-down" the problem and add a slight "twist" to it. Consider the one-line partition $\lambda_n=(n)$ and its ...
T. Amdeberhan's user avatar
4 votes
0 answers
146 views

Tiling squares with oblongs

An oblong is a rectangle whose width and length are consecutive integers: 1x2, 2x3, 3x4, etc. Does N exist such that it is possible to split the first N oblongs into 2 or more non-intersecting sets so ...
Bernardo Recamán Santos's user avatar
4 votes
0 answers
206 views

Generating a Penrose tessellation around a given tile

Given a starting Penrose tile, I need to build a "spiraling" tessellation around it. The following picture illustrates the request: In this example, the starting tile is a "thin rhombus" (the pink ...
Andrea Prunotto's user avatar
4 votes
0 answers
164 views

Tileability and computabilty

Let $n>2$ be an integer. We consider $n$ pairs $(x_1,y_1),\dotsc,(x_n,y_n)$ in $\mathbb{N}^2$, and the polygon defined by drawing a straight line from $(x_k, y_k)$ to $(x_{k+1},y_{k+1})$ and from $(...
Dominic van der Zypen's user avatar
4 votes
0 answers
152 views

Mixing time for dimers on the square-octagon graph

Consider the "fortress graph" of order $n$ (see Figure 9 of http://faculty.uml.edu/jpropp/tiling/www/mdblum/arctic.html). It's been known empirically for twenty years that if one turns the set of ...
James Propp's user avatar
  • 19.7k
4 votes
0 answers
117 views

symmetric difference of temperate zone and inscribed disk

For random domino tilings of the Aztec diamond of order $n$ or random lozenge tilings of the regular hexagon of order $n$, what's the typical order of magnitude of the area of the symmetric difference ...
James Propp's user avatar
  • 19.7k
3 votes
0 answers
83 views

Distance spectra of uniform tilings

Let a uniform tiling be defined by a vertex configuration $(n_1.n_2.\cdots.n_k)^m$, which is either spherical, Euclidean or hyperbolic. Assume that the tiling is vertex-transitive, especially that ...
Hans-Peter Stricker's user avatar
3 votes
0 answers
137 views

Aperiodic tile with rational area

Margulis and Mozes constructed aperiodic tiling system on the hyperbolic plane consisting of a single tile(hyperbolic polygon) whose area (or each inner angle) is irrational multiple of $\pi$. Having ...
Arun 's user avatar
  • 745
3 votes
0 answers
109 views

chromatic number of plane using Cairo pentagonal tiling

Scale the Cairo pentagonal tiling so the short side is of length 1. Then it is easy to colour the tiling with 8 colours, two parallel ribbons of four colours each, to establish that the chromatic ...
Michael Ruxton's user avatar
3 votes
0 answers
106 views

How many positions of a tile can occur in a periodic tiling?

In my recent question about polygonal tilings where tiles can occur in infinitely many positions, both constructions given as solutions are of self-similar nature. This means in particular that there ...
Wolfgang's user avatar
  • 13.4k
3 votes
0 answers
126 views

Tilings of the plane and meromorphic functions on the plane

This question has three up-votes on m.s.e. but isn't getting any answers. Every textbook says every doubly-periodic meromorphic function on $\mathbb C$ has a fundamental domain that is a ...
Michael Hardy's user avatar
3 votes
0 answers
426 views

Tiling a rectangle with weighted cells (min-max problem)

I have been struggling with a research problem. The problem can be formalized as follows: Given a $n\times m$ matrix $A$ containing cells with non-negative integer values, partition it in $J$ ...
SaSa's user avatar
  • 31
3 votes
0 answers
151 views

Is there a Fourier transform for principal r-discrete groupoids?

I have been looking for an analog of the Fourier transform for groupoids coming from tilings (which are generally principal and r-discrete), however all the generalizations I have found assume that ...
mkreisel's user avatar
  • 1,010
2 votes
0 answers
94 views

Hexagon tiling and affine Weyl group $\widetilde{A}_2$

Let $H$ be a regular hexagonal room centered at the origin. Let $W$ be the group generated by reflections about the six sides of $H$. It's well known that $W$ is the affine Weyl group of type $\...
zemora's user avatar
  • 565