Wang pointed out that it is possible to find sets of Wang tiles that mimic the behaviour of any Turing Machine (Wang 1975). A Turing machine can compute all recursive functions, that is functions whose values can be calculated in … Continue reading
Wang originally conjectured that no aperiodic tilings could exist. Wang was interested in the decidability of the Tiling Problem; it is said to be decidable if there exists an algorithm which will yield a solution for any given set of prototiles … Continue reading
This closely follows “Tilings and Patterns” (Grünbaum and Shephard, 1987), but uses coloured diagrams rather than their monochrome ones. In some ways this is simply a catalogue of aperiodic tilings, their various forms and some indication of their uses, but my interest … Continue reading
The concepts of periodic and non-periodic tiling are defined so as to clearly distinguish them from aperiodic tiling; the subject of a future post “Aperiodic Tiling”. Informally a tiling (of the 2D Euclidean plane) is a collection of subsets of … Continue reading
This post is the result of a recent first visit to Berlin; and in particular to the Altes, Neues and Jüdiches Museums there. These irreverently brought to mind James Thurber’s story Here Lies Miss Groby and her concept of the … Continue reading
I had surprisingly forgotten about this haptic lamp that actually sits in one of our bedrooms. We originally came across them in a smart B+B in Arboyne and initially were flumoxed by them. The clue to its use is on the … Continue reading
This gallery contains 11 photos.
Abbott Handerson Thayer (1849-1921) was for a time one of America’s most famous portrait painters. He was also an accomplished painter of the natural world, being particularly interested in animal colouration. He made three important contributions to camouflage theory. These … Continue reading
Radios that can be operated in the dark with one hand. Battery in square enclosure acts as on-off switch, programme selector, volume control and power supply. No buttons, dials, sliders or other moving parts. Because radio can be operated in … Continue reading
Goethe is usually credited with using the phrase “I call architecture frozen music” in a letter published in 1836. (Eckermann 1836) A similar phrase “Architecture is like frozen music” seems to have been used earlier in Schelling’s Philosophy of Art. (Schelling 1802-03) … Continue reading
In 2011 Dan Shechtman was alone awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the discovery of quasicrystals. Shechtman found in 1982 that atoms in a crystal could exhibit 5 fold symmetry packed in a pattern that did not repeat itself; analogous … Continue reading
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