A conversation about mathematics inspired by the new aperiodic monotile. Presented by Katie Steckles and Peter Rowlett, with special guest Chaim Goodman-Strauss.
The paper announcing the discovery is An aperiodic monotile by David Smith, Joseph Samuel Myers, Craig S. Kaplan and Chaim Goodman-Strauss.
Note: This podcast was recorded after the discovery of the ‘hat’ and ‘turtle’ monotiles but before the announcement of the ‘spectre’ monotile. Confused? Don’t worry, we explain in the episode!
Surely you didn’t expect news about aperiodic tilings to appear at regular intervals? You know how it is – you wait ages for a new aperiodic monotile discovery to come along, then two come in quick succession.
In March, we covered the discovery of an aperiodic monotile. The team of authors behind that discovery have been continuing their work and this week have an even bigger announcement.
This is probably the biggest aperiodicity news we’ll ever cover here: David Smith, Joseph Samuel Myers, Craig S. Kaplan, and Chaim Goodman-Strauss have produced a single shape which tiles the plane, and can’t be arranged to have translational symmetry.
Not much going on in the world of maths this month (or, we’re on holiday so we haven’t been paying attention), but here’s a round-up of a few stories we saw this month.
Later this month the 9th Heidelberg Laureate Forum will take place in Germany, bringing together laureates of the Abel Prize, Fields Medal and other prestigious maths and computer science awards. The event also invites hundreds of promising PhD students in maths and computer science to network and watch lectures by the laureates. Much of the conference will be livestreamed online, and there’ll be Twitter and blog coverage of the event (including some posts by me, and others by Chalkdust team member/friend of the site Sophie Maclean).
Aperiodic tilings exhibition
The Open University has put together a mathematical art exhibition and workshop inspired by aperiodic tilings, in honour of Uwe Grimm, and it’s now possible to view the Aperiodic tilings exhibition online, including stills of the pieces and a video walk around the exhibition.
Is there something happening with maths positivity in (UK?) media? Or am I just reading too much into a coincidence? I’m going to share some recent maths-positive media stuff in a thread, would love to hear about more!
