[HN Gopher] UK hobbyist stuns math world with 'amazing' new shapes
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UK hobbyist stuns math world with 'amazing' new shapes
Author : mojomark
Score : 110 points
Date : 2023-06-10 14:15 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (phys.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (phys.org)
| bradrn wrote:
| Previously discussed at
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36119920. Original paper at
| https://arxiv.org/abs/2305.17743.
| d_tr wrote:
| I find David Smith's former job interesting in relation to the
| story. I guess that as a print technician he dealt with 2D
| patterns a lot.
|
| This is extremely cool and impressive.
| Jarmsy wrote:
| "While all agreed "the hat" was the first einstein, its mirror
| image was required one in seven times to ensure that a pattern
| never repeated."
|
| The article has a small error here - it should say
| _approximately_ 7. The ratio between the tiles and their mirrors
| is phi^4.
|
| https://cp4space.hatsya.com/2023/03/21/aperiodic-monotile/
| [deleted]
| motohagiography wrote:
| What I like about the amateur aspect of this story is that it
| should encourage people to just pursue what interests them. So
| long as you eschew prestige you can do literally anything you
| want. Prestige is just a euphemism not worth it anyway - and
| hacking is what you do when you don't know. When combined, these
| attitudes together can get some pretty good stuff done.
| jasonb05 wrote:
| > hacking is what you do when you don't know
|
| this. this is where the new/good stuff comes from.
| abeppu wrote:
| From a mathematician quoted about the non-reflective monotile:
|
| > She said she expects the specter and its relatives "will lead
| to a deeper understanding of order in nature and the nature of
| order."
|
| So, for a lay person, this tile seems like a cool curiosity, but
| it's not clear why it should tell us anything more general about
| something so broad as "the nature of order". Can someone with a
| better grasp of the relationship between tiling and other domains
| explain why one might expect the implications to be wider?
| throw_pm23 wrote:
| If I recall correctly, the existence of aperiodic tilings had
| ramifications e.g. for the kinds of crystal structures that can
| arise in nature. The fact that a single tile can do it seems
| like an even more fundamental statement, even if concrete
| implications are not yet in sight.
| MobiusHorizons wrote:
| My guess would be this is a call for research funding rather
| than a concrete expectation.
| hgsgm wrote:
| It's a generic throwaway statement.
| bluepoint wrote:
| I wish they used a different color for each orientation to see
| what pattern the angles form.
| javajosh wrote:
| phys.org's coverage makes absolutely no mention of the source of
| the shape! https://phys.org/news/2023-06-aperiodic-tile-hat-true-
| chiral...
|
| What a trash publication.
| mojomark wrote:
| Valid point. I like to peruse the headlines on phys.org before
| I go to bed for the evening, ran accross this and thought it
| might be of interest to HN. Write up was enough for me, but
| agree that they are shit for references for those that want to
| dive deeper.
|
| Cited suggestions on alternative, albeit but more formal, free
| paper/story summary app are welcome if you have one. I'm all
| ears for sure!
| rini17 wrote:
| Anyone knows if the shape is copyrighted? Like Penrose's or
| Escher's are.
| aaron695 wrote:
| [dead]
| azinman2 wrote:
| how can a shape have a copyright
| inetsee wrote:
| It's a sequence of coordinates for the vertices of the shape.
| Is that different from a sequence of words in a story or a
| book.
| hgsgm wrote:
| There not true. Penrose tilings as a whole are generated
| randomly, with overall features determined only by the two
| simple tile shapes.
| starkparker wrote:
| cf. the threshold of originality[1]; the answer to that
| question is "it depends on the shape, legal precedent, and
| the laws where you live"
|
| 1: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Threshold_of_
| orig...
| Someone wrote:
| Legally, it can be different. For example, a typeface is a
| sequence of coordinates for the vertices of the shape, but
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellectual_property_protec
| ti...):
|
| _"Typefaces cannot be protected by copyright in the United
| States (Code of Federal Regulations, Ch 37, Sec. 202.1(e);
| Eltra Corp. v. Ringer), but fonts can be protected by
| design patent and may be protected by copyright."_
|
| As I understand things, _if_ the USA legal system were to
| choose to apply the same rules to these tiles, their exact
| shape would be copyrightable, but variations on it
| wouldn't, even if the variations, for all intents and
| purposes, are identical to the original.
| pavlov wrote:
| Corporate logos are a widespread example of copyrighted
| shapes, usually defined as Bezier curves these days.
| cwillu wrote:
| You're conflating trademarks with copyrights; while there
| is some minor overlap, corporate logos are examples of
| trademarks, and applying copyright concepts will lead you
| to concluding that you can use an apple with a bite taken
| from it as your computer company's logo, as long as you
| don't use one derivative of that which apple uses. Which
| will entirely fail to hold water when apple sues you over
| it.
| GuB-42 wrote:
| Trademarks and copyright have entirely different
| purposes. Corporate logos are often both.
|
| A trademark is a brand, it identifies your work. Apple
| puts its logo on its computers to show that they made
| them. Because it is a registered trademark, you can't put
| the Apple logo on your own computers because it will
| mislead people into thinking they are Apple products.
| However, it doesn't prevent you from using the Apple logo
| in any other way. You can make artwork featuring the
| Apple logo if it is clear that Apple have nothing to do
| with it. If you keep your trademark registered and
| actually use it, it will never expire.
|
| Copyright is about protecting the work of the artist or
| the company that commissioned it. For example, making a
| nice logo is hard work and you want to be compensated for
| it, so you may want people who use it to pay you, that's
| what copyright is for. The Apple logo precise shape,
| colors, etc... are covered by copyright. It means that
| you can't reuse the art for any reason without
| permissions, so in that way, it is a stronger protection
| than a trademark. The idea of a bitten off apple is not
| covered by copyright however, copyright doesn't cover
| ideas, only actual work, so if it wasn't also a
| trademark, you could have put your own drawing of a
| bitten off apple on a computer you made. Copyright
| doesn't need to be registered and expires after about 100
| years.
|
| The third category, also different, are patents. Patents
| protect inventions, I don't think it makes sense to
| patent a logo, but I can imagine a tiling shape being
| patented. Or more precisely, the practical application of
| such a shape. Patents need to be registered and meet
| certain criteria, they expire after 20 years.
| User23 wrote:
| Which is kind of funny, because Apple arguably stole the
| Apple trademark from Apple records and then proceeded to
| go into the music business contrary to their agreement.
| They even distributed a system beep sound called
| "sosumi."
| pavlov wrote:
| Solid point. The logo design files themselves are also
| under copyright though.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| Copyright is a human invention to encourage research and
| development of art and tech.
|
| It isn't perfect, but we haven't found an alternative system
| that doesn't punish the first mover who takes on the risk.
| shrimp_emoji wrote:
| Because nothing was invented before copyright was.
| masfuerte wrote:
| The Penrose tiling is (or was) patented.
| denton-scratch wrote:
| And Penrose sued Kleenex for violation, and won. They had
| used the tiling to make a better tissue.
| burkaman wrote:
| Please take this as genuine friendly curiosity and not an
| attack - why do you care? Why is there so often a highly
| upvoted comment about copyright on HN posts, whether or not
| they have anything to do with intellectual property? Every
| Launch HN, every Show HN, and a huge number of random posts
| like this one have a comment like this one. Why is this topic
| so interesting for what seems to be a majority of HN users?
|
| For me it feels like going to a car forum and seeing a post in
| every thread asking how the car is insured. There's nothing
| wrong with being into insurance, but it's not the type of thing
| you expect to be discussed at length on a car site, you know?
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| I care very much, and I'll explain why. Whether or not a
| particular invention is under copyright or patent, vs in the
| public domain, has huge implications on whether others are
| free to use and play with that invention in creations of
| their own.
|
| This is, after all, "Hacker" News. I would expect a lot of us
| would be interested in how freely we could hack on something
| without our creations subsequently being legally encumbered.
| duncan-donuts wrote:
| Well I could sell the first infinite piece puzzle if the
| shape isn't copyrighted
| rocketbop wrote:
| Person ignorant here of copyright when it comes to
| mathematics. What do you need to do to copyright something?
| It doesn't work the way art like music and writing does?
| Which is that copyright is automatic just by recording or
| writing something down in some way.
|
| The idea that a shape, even a very complex one, could be
| copyrightable is pretty wild to me.
| karmakaze wrote:
| Not a copyright but Apple patented "rectangle with
| rounded corners"[0].
|
| [0] https://www.theverge.com/2012/11/7/3614506/apple-
| patents-rec...
| pseudo0 wrote:
| It's "Hacker News", not "Consumer News". Lots of people come
| here looking for interesting projects to contribute to,
| modify, incorporate into hobby projects, or even use for
| commercial purposes. Some of those uses may be disallowed by
| copyright and licensing issues. It seems like an obvious
| question that needs to be asked before getting excited and
| wasting hours writing code that can't be used.
|
| Just from my own experience, I have gotten burned a couple of
| times, where a five minute check on copyright/licensing would
| have saved hours of wasted effort.
| aaron695 wrote:
| [dead]
| denton-scratch wrote:
| Hatfest:
|
| https://www.maths.ox.ac.uk/node/64321
|
| Registration is required, but free. I live in Oxford; I might
| rock up. I'd like to meet (or at least hear) Roger Penrose.
| Simulacra wrote:
| I can see a board game coming of this.
| mmoustafa wrote:
| It's quite a big discovery! but it's also not a true ein stein as
| the article claims since it uses the shape and its transpose
| mirror image for the pattern. So 2 shapes, rather than 1.
| zulban wrote:
| Good to read the full article before criticizing.
| anotherhue wrote:
| his second shape doesn't require the mirror. "The Spectre"
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(page generated 2023-06-10 23:02 UTC)