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…”.

6 Comments

  1. 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

  2. Antonio:

    Jaja, funny anecdote! Most of the pavement of the streets in Sevilla is a hexagonal tiling.

    Best,
    Antonio

  3. 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!
    Best,
    Luis

  4. 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

  5. doodlebug:

    Should have went with rectangles for kitchen!

  6. Connor:

    Hahaha, not the person you want to get into a geometrical argument with. You should somehow include this story in your Huffington Post blog!