Mathematicians Find New 13-Sided Shape Called 'The Hat'

gizmodo.com

13 points·isaacfrond··6 comments

What an awful title. It's not like they just discovered a random new shape. There are obviously an infinite number of "shapes".

The point is that it's an aperiodic monotile, which (horribly simplified) means that it's a tiling shape that creates a tiling pattern that does not repeat.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Einstein_problem

It's a great title. If my job was writing headlines, I would absolutely tack towards "new shape just dropped" rather than some nerd shit, however technically correct it is. You can do the explaining in the actual article.

Similar from 6 days ago https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35273707

(> 150 comments)

Also:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35241608 (3 comments)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35242458 (> 20 comments)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35264965 (> 50 comments)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35265569 (1 comment)

Is there any sort of function or usefulness to this outside of an interesting new tile design? I've seen this a couple of times now, and I'm interested to hear what the potential outcomes are with this discovery.

(For clarity, I am not arguing that every new discovery must have practical application)

You could tile your bathroom with it, and you'd never be bored while bathing.

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