Penta
| In December of 2019, we were traveling through the Dallas airport (Starbucks #18815, Love field gate 6), and we sat down for a coffee. I noticed the screen's pattern was unusual. Clearly signs of pentagons everywhere, though of course you cannot tile the plane with pentagons. I took this picture to see if I could figure it out. |
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| Clearly there are parallel lines everywhere, and a few dominant directions, so I tried to overlay lines - but it was not clear if this would lead anywhere.. |
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| Looking at the pattern, I could see that you could take the basic element
to be a 5-pointed star, with parts filled in, giving rise to kites, boats etc.
I used Fusion-360 to stitch together the stars, and then fill in parts, and
so reproduce the pattern in the photograph.
These images are exported from fusion, and colored in Gimp I had to enhance the top and bottom to make out the patterns there
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| A tedious process. |
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| 8 |
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| Screenshot from Fusion |
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| 12 |
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| All very interestering, but how to use it? In 2020, I needed to replace the grille on an old fan, so I took the pattern, and using Inkscape, made the lines fat, and lasercut it out of 1/8" red plexi. |
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penta2.dxf penta2.svg penta3.dxf penta3.svg |
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| xxx |
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| 2020: A related recent discovery: one of my neighbors has his carport paved in Penrose tiles. We have to talk! |
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| Here is a great video about tiling, including Penrose tilings | 
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| more links: wikimedia | 
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| 2023: In Marocco, there are fabulous tile patterns of all kinds, many dating back centuries. But they all have symmetries based on 4 and 6, and multiples thereof. So I was surprised to see this one, in the entrance building of the Great Mosque in Casablanca. Trying to find out more.... | 
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| The elusive 'einstein' |
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What can you do with an einstein?
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