The discovery earlier this year of the “hat” tile marked the culmination of hundreds of years of work into tiles and their symmetries. The post A Brief History of Tricky Mathematical Tiling first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Every day we see examples of repeating motifs. This symmetry and regularity can seem mundane and almost invisible, as with brickwork on building walls or the hexagonal pattern in a honeycomb. Or if we’re lucky enough to encounter something like the elegant tile work in Spain’s Alhambra or M.C. Escher’s creative drawings, the patterns can inspire and amaze us. For centuries…