English

When Can You Tile an Integer Rectangle with Integer Squares?

Computational Geometry 2023-08-30 v1 Combinatorics

Abstract

This paper characterizes when an m×nm \times n rectangle, where mm and nn are integers, can be tiled (exactly packed) by squares where each has an integer side length of at least 2. In particular, we prove that tiling is always possible when both mm and nn are sufficiently large (at least 10). When one dimension mm is small, the behavior is eventually periodic in nn with period 1, 2, or 3. When both dimensions m,nm,n are small, the behavior is determined computationally by an exhaustive search.

Cite

@article{arxiv.2308.15317,
  title  = {When Can You Tile an Integer Rectangle with Integer Squares?},
  author = {MIT CompGeom Group and Zachary Abel and Hugo A. Akitaya and Erik D. Demaine and Adam C. Hesterberg and Jayson Lynch},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2308.15317},
  year   = {2023}
}

Comments

6 pages, 1 figure