Related papers: Tiling a unit square with 8 squares
An irregular vertex in a tiling by polygons is a vertex of one tile and belongs to the interior of an edge of another tile. In this paper we show that for any integer $k\geq 3$, there exists a normal tiling of the Euclidean plane by convex…
An equilateral triangle cannot be dissected into finitely many mutually incongruent equilateral triangles [Tutte 1948]. Therefore Tuza [Tuza 1991] asked for the largest number $s=s(n)$ such that there is a tiling of an equilateral triangle…
A set is said to tile the integers if and only if the integers can be written as a disjoint union of translates of that set. We consider the problem of finding necessary and sufficient conditions for a finite set to tile the integers. For…
In this paper, we prove that if a finite number of rectangles, every of which has at least one integer side, perfectly tile a big rectangle then there exists a strategy which reduces the number of these tiles (rectangles) without violating…
We prove the computational intractability of rotating and placing $n$ square tiles into a $1 \times n$ array such that adjacent tiles are compatible--either equal edge colors, as in edge-matching puzzles, or matching tab/pocket shapes, as…
Let $s(n)$ be the side length of the smallest square into which $n$ non-overlapping unit squares can be packed. In 2010, the author showed that $s(13)=4$ and $s(46)=7$. Together with the result $s(6)=3$ by Keaney and Shiu, these results…
We study the minimal complexity of tilings of a plane with a given tile set. We note that every tile set admits either no tiling or some tiling with O(n) Kolmogorov complexity of its n-by-n squares. We construct tile sets for which this…
We count tilings of the $n \times m$ rectangular grid, cylinder, and torus with arbitrary tile sets up to arbitrary symmetries of the square and rectangle, along with cyclic shifting of rows and columns. This provides a unifying framework…
A tiling of the sphere by triangles, squares, or hexagons is convex if every vertex has at most 6, 4, or 3 polygons adjacent to it, respectively. Assigning an appropriate weight to any tiling, our main result is explicit formulas for the…
If n is a multiple of 4, then a square of side n can be tiled with T-tetrominos, using a well-known construction. If n is even but not a multiple of four, then there exists an equally well-known construction for tiling a square of side n…
We consider the problem of coloring the squares of graphs of bounded maximum average degree, that is, the problem of coloring the vertices while ensuring that two vertices that are adjacent or have a common neighbour receive different…
In this paper, we prove that for any $1/2<t<1$, there exists a positive integer $N_{0}$ depending on $t$ such that for any $n_{0}\geq N_{0}$, squares of sidelength $f(n)^{-t}$ for $n\geq n_{0}$ can be packed with disjoint interiors into a…
In two papers, Little and Sellers introduced an exciting new combinatorial method for proving partition identities which is not directly bijective. Instead, they consider various sets of weighted tilings of a $1 \times \infty$ board with…
We show that a large square of sidelength $x$ can be packed by unit squares in a manner so that the wasted space $W(x) = O(x^{3/5})$.
Let $f(n)$ denote the maximum sum of the side lengths of $n$ non-overlapping squares packed inside a unit square. We prove that $f(n^2+1) = n$ for all positive integers $n$ if and only if the sum $\sum_{k\geq 1}(f(k^2+1)-k)$ converges. We…
This paper is concerned with the problem of finding $n$ distinct squares such that, on excluding any one of them, the sum of the remaining $n-1$ squares is a square. While parametric solutions are known when $n=3$ and $n=4$, when $n > 4$,…
Let $ex_r(N,g)$ be the maximum number of edges in an $r$-uni\-form hypergraph on $N$ vertices with girth at least $g$. We are interested in the asymptotic behavior of this value when $N$ is increasing but parameters $g\in\{6,8\}$ and…
The paper provides an elementary proof of Kenyon's necessary condition for the existence of a periodic tiling of the plane by squares with given periods. A similar new result on covering both sides of a rectangle by nonoverlaping squares is…
Given a convex $n$-gon $P$ and a positive integer $m$ such that $3\le m\le n-1$, let $Q$ denote the largest area convex $m$-gon contained in $P$. We are interested in the minimum value of $\Delta(Q)/\Delta(P)$, the ratio of the areas of…
We are interested in the maximal number of distinct squares in a word. This problem was introduced by Fraenkel and Simpson, who presented a bound of 2n for a word of length n, and conjectured that the bound was less than n. Being that the…