this post was submitted on 27 Mar 2026
170 points (99.4% liked)

Wikipedia

5116 readers
179 users here now

A place to share interesting articles from Wikipedia.

Rules:

Recommended:

founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
 

Image by Cmglee, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

A square can tile a plane but can form a repeating pattern. Is there a single shape that can tile but never repeats? That's what's called the "einstein problem".

Link to the article

In 2010, the first never-repeating tile was discovered: the Socolar-Taylor tile. But it's a bit weird, having several separated, disconnected bits.

In 2022, "The Hat" (shown in pic) was discovered, and it's a lot less weird. It only has 13 sides and nice angles that are multiples of 30°.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] Hackworth@piefed.ca 6 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

Best I could find is plastic or balsa wood, but I bet you could use one of those clay 3d printers to make some.