Islamic tiles reveal sophisticated maths

[savage_carrot]

http//www.nature.com/news/2007/070219/full/070219-9.html

The complex geometrical designs used centuries ago in Islamic art and architecture were planned with a tiling system that was not discovered in the West until five centuries later, two physicists have claimed.

Islamic tiling patterns were put together not with a compass and ruler, as previously assumed, but by tessellating a small number of different tiles with complex shapes, say Peter J. Lu of Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts and Paul Steinhardt of Princeton University in New Jersey.
The researchers think that this technique was developed around the start of the thirteenth century. By the fifteenth century, it was sophisticated enough to make complex patterns now described as quasi-periodic.

These patterns were 'discovered' in 1973 by the British mathematical physicist Roger Penrose. In 1984, they were found in metal alloys called quasi-crystals that seemed to break the geometric rules of atomic packing.

[phoenix1]

are these the patternless patterns?

[savage_carrot]

The unique patterns that are patternless. Yes.

[phoenix1]

I have to say, this is pretty awsome. People weren't stupid back then. They didn't have to wait for the "renaissance" to start thinking.
Penrose is still a genius (quite literally), though.

[savage_carrot]

I agree with you and I'm sure there's much more out there yet to be uncovered.