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If a geometric shape can be used as a prototile to create a tessellation, the shape is said to tessellate or to tile the plane. The Conway criterion is a sufficient, but not necessary, set of rules for deciding whether a given shape tiles the plane periodically without reflections: some tiles fail the criterion, but still tile the plane. [19]
In tiling or tessellation problems, there are to be no gaps, nor overlaps. Many of the puzzles of this type involve packing rectangles or polyominoes into a larger rectangle or other square-like shape. There are significant theorems on tiling rectangles (and cuboids) in rectangles (cuboids) with no gaps or overlaps:
The original form of Penrose tiling used tiles of four different shapes, but this was later reduced to only two shapes: either two different rhombi, or two different quadrilaterals called kites and darts. The Penrose tilings are obtained by constraining the ways in which these shapes are allowed to fit together in a way that avoids periodic tiling.
The regular pentagon cannot form Cairo tilings, as it does not tile the plane without gaps. There is a unique equilateral pentagon that can form a type 4 Cairo tiling; it has five equal sides but its angles are unequal, and its tiling is bilaterally symmetric. [4] [13] Infinitely many other equilateral pentagons can form type 2 Cairo tilings. [4]
Like squares and equilateral triangles, regular hexagons fit together without any gaps to tile the plane (three hexagons meeting at every vertex), and so are useful for constructing tessellations. The cells of a beehive honeycomb are hexagonal for this reason and because the shape makes efficient use of space and building materials.
The most efficient way to pack different-sized circles together is not obvious. In geometry, circle packing is the study of the arrangement of circles (of equal or varying sizes) on a given surface such that no overlapping occurs and so that no circle can be enlarged without creating an overlap.
We’ve gathered some amusing and oddly satisfying examples of things that perfectly fit into other things. If that sounds like it can’t be all that enjoyable, just wait, get comfortable as you ...
The 12 pentominoes can form 18 different shapes, with 6 of them (the chiral pentominoes) being mirrored. A pentomino (or 5-omino) is a polyomino of order 5; that is, a polygon in the plane made of 5 equal-sized squares connected edge to edge.