The Story of the Contractor and the Hexagonal Tiles
After Hales proved in 1999 the Hexagonal Honeycomb Conjecture—that regular hexagons provide the least-perimeter, minimal-interface way to tile the plane with unit areas—I decided I wanted hexagonal tiles for my kitchen:
In the middle of the job, the contractor ran out of grout for the interfaces between the tiles. He had an excuse: he explained that hexagonal tiles apparently required more grout! That was the wrong time and place for that excuse. I had to respond: “Actually…”.
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Melanie Starner Strout:
I was thinking about you the other day. My 4 year old daughter was in the tub surrounded by bubbles, she was trying to put them on her finger and blow them off. I remembered the last time I saw you at TMC you were talking to me about bubbles and their surfaces. So, I thought I would take a minute and see if I could find you. Your work is fascinating to me. If you have a minute sometime I’d love to hear from you. xoxo, Melanie
7 November 2011, 11:30 amAntonio:
Jaja, funny anecdote! Most of the pavement of the streets in Sevilla is a hexagonal tiling.
Best,
8 November 2011, 2:31 pmAntonio
Luis Sordo Vieira:
This is a great story! I wonder how many people he has told that excuse to and they believed him! I will have to mention this story from you as comedic relief in my talk this friday!
27 November 2011, 5:49 pmBest,
Luis
jeannie:
Re: grout amount needed: Is this true for the same size square tile vs hexagonal tile? Or maybe let’s say the same size in area for a square vs hexagon?
Yes, exactly—fm
8 December 2011, 10:54 amdoodlebug:
Should have went with rectangles for kitchen!
13 December 2011, 2:29 amConnor:
Hahaha, not the person you want to get into a geometrical argument with. You should somehow include this story in your Huffington Post blog!
1 March 2012, 12:16 pm