this post was submitted on 27 Mar 2026
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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".

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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°.

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[–] IAmNorRealTakeYourMeds@lemmy.world 17 points 3 months ago (2 children)

i 3d printed a lot of them and made a mural.

it's actually hard to tessalate them.

[–] bitfucker@programming.dev 5 points 3 months ago (1 children)

You know what? If you want to be a prick you could hire a contractor to tesselate it lol. "Hey, I already have the tile, can you assemble it for me?"

they'll be smart and figure out a mathematical tool to efficiently predict where the next tile goes. and win the fields medal award

[–] tal@lemmy.today 4 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

I'd imagine that one could have software generate a tesselation.

[–] bitfucker@programming.dev 1 points 3 months ago

I think due to the fact that we know for sure the patterns are non repeating, the algorithm would never terminate for an infinitely large plane. But for a bounded plane, then yeah, that's doable