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THE HIDDEN MATH OF
BATHROOM FLOORS
Talk about tiling, and the first thing that comes
to mind (for non-mathematicians, anyway) is an
ordinary bathroom floor (Figure
A
). However,
coming up with shapes that will cover a flat
surface in an efficient and visually pleasing way
is not as easy as it seems. Let’s explore tiling
with simple polygons and then jump to a newly
discovered way to cover a surface called an
“einstein monotile” (no relation to the physicist).
To a mathematician, tiling is the process of
covering a surface completely with one or more
repeating shapes, such that the shapes do not
overlap or have any gaps between them. ...