A “regular” pentagonal tiling of the plane

Bowers, Philip; Stephenson, Kenneth

doi:10.1090/S1088-4173-97-00014-3

A “regular” pentagonal tiling of the plane
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by Philip L. Bowers and Kenneth Stephenson

Conform. Geom. Dyn. 1 (1997), 58-86

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1090/S1088-4173-97-00014-3

Published electronically: November 14, 1997

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Abstract:

The paper introduces conformal tilings, wherein tiles have specified conformal shapes. The principal example involves conformally regular pentagons which tile the plane in a pattern generated by a subdivision rule. Combinatorial symmetries imply rigid conformal symmetries, which in turn illustrate a new type of tiling self-similarity. In parallel with the conformal tilings, the paper develops discrete tilings based on circle packings. These faithfully reflect the key features of the theory and provide the tiling illustrations of the paper. Moreover, it is shown that under refinement the discrete tiles converge to their true conformal shapes, shapes for which no other approximation techniques are known. The paper concludes with some further examples which may contribute to the study of tilings and shinglings being carried forward by Cannon, Floyd, and Parry.

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