The “hat” wowed mathematicians. Now the shape is shaking up physics. In 2023, mathematicians reported that the 13-sided tile was the first known “einstein.” That’s a shape that can perfectly cover an ...

A 13-sided shape known as “the hat” has mathematicians tipping their caps. It’s the first true example of an “einstein,” a single shape that forms a special tiling of a plane: Like bathroom floor tile ...

For some, tiles are rarely thought of unless it’s time for home renovations, but for mathematicians, they present plenty of conundrums—and a clever team has just cracked a particularly tricky one.

A geometry problem that has been puzzling scientists for 60 years has likely just been solved by an amateur mathematician with a newly discovered 13-sided shape. Called “The hat” because it vaguely ...

The discovery earlier this year of the “hat” tile marked the culmination of hundreds of years of work into tiles and their symmetries. Every day we see examples of repeating motifs. This symmetry and ...

David Smith, a math hobbyist in Yorkshire, England, has discovered a 13-sided shape that eluded mathematicians for decades. The craggy, hatlike shape is called an “einstein,” based on the German for ...

On March 20, 2023, a team of four researchers announced that they had discovered a shape. This was big news in the world of mathematics and was widely reported in the media. The reason for the ...