The (Quasi)crystal Clear World of Penrose Patterns - Dr Ellis Rintoul
22nd April 2023
Take a collection of squares, or triangles, or even hexagons, and you can place them together in a pattern that has no gaps, no overlaps, and repeats to infinity. Try and do this (on a flat plane) with any other shape and you'll quickly find it impossible. In this month's episode of Maths Club, we'll investigate how this might not quite be the case using the work of the enigmatic and world-famous Roger Penrose. We'll see that what first appears to have no relevance to our lives outside of recreational mathematics in fact helps define the very structure of matter around us.