Why five-sided figures pose a problem from Professor John Hunton - and a bit about the importance of Penrose Tiling. More links & stuff in full description below ↓↓↓ Professor Hunton...
========== JOHN HUNTON: Well, as far as I'm
concerned, the importantthing about five is that it's
not three, four, or six.And three, four, or six are each
numbers that have reallyspecial properties in relation
to tiling the plane--so creating repeating
patterns of tiles.So I brought some props.And here they are squares.These are the sort of squares
that we all put on our walls.And the pattern is
very simple.And anyone can carry on putting
down square tiles, andthe pattern repeats itself
on, and on, and on.You don't need instructions
becauseyou know how it continues.Now, suppose you want
something a bitmore exotic than that.Let's say you wanted
triangle tiles.Say your tiles were
triangles--like that.Well, you could put the next one
upside down, and th...
