English

Tiling by rectangles and alternating current

Combinatorics 2016-06-17 v2 Mathematical Physics math.MP

Abstract

This paper is on tilings of polygons by rectangles. A celebrated physical interpretation of such tilings due to R.L. Brooks, C.A.B. Smith, A.H. Stone and W.T. Tutte uses direct-current circuits. The new approach of the paper is an application of alternating-current circuits. The following results are obtained: - a necessary condition for a rectangle to be tilable by rectangles of given shapes; - a criterion for a rectangle to be tilable by rectangles similar to it but not all homothetic to it; - a criterion for a generic polygon to be tilable by squares. These results generalize the ones of C. Freiling, R. Kenyon, M. Laczkovich, D. Rinne and G. Szekeres.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1002.1356,
  title  = {Tiling by rectangles and alternating current},
  author = {M. Prasolov and M. Skopenkov},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1002.1356},
  year   = {2016}
}

Comments

In English and in Russian; 21 pages; 6 figures; minor improvement of exposition, Russian translation added

R2 v1 2026-06-21T14:44:05.279Z