A Hall of Hexagons
Back in August, in The Joy of Hex, I described my experiments (teaching and non-teaching) with a hexagonal tiling pattern –
One paragraph of the article said:
I also recall reading a very interesting web page which found this exact pattern being used as a paving slab in Spain, and developed quite an in depth mathematical discussion, but sadly this page now seems to have disappeared into the æther.
I’m very happy to say that I have rediscovered the webpage mentioned (after both it and my site were linked to in this thread on a tiling DIY site!): it’s The Hall of Hexagons!
The particular page in this site that I remember reading was Hexagons in the Sidewalk, by R. F. Housholder:
It all started in the city of Puerto de la Cruz on the island of Tenerife in the Canary Islands in December, 2004. My wife and I were exploring the town and came across a green sidewalk that was tiled with hexagonal tiles. Upon closer examination, I saw that the hexagon pattern on each tile was identical and that the overall pattern was made by rotating the tiles and placing them in a repeating sequence so that the pattern continued the entire length of the sidewalk, probably in excess of 100 meters.
(so, not Spain then, but close enough!).
It’s a great article, which among other things looks into random tilings with hexagons, and using hexagon tilings as a form of encryption. Read, and enjoy!