Advanced geometry of Islamic art

Discussion in 'Smalltalk' started by Unbeknown, May 2, 2015.

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  1. Unbeknown

    Unbeknown Senior Moderator

    Quasicrystals in Medieval Islamic Architecture, Harvard Physics Colloquium Lecture

     
  2. [​IMG] A study of medieval Islamic art has shown some of its geometric patterns use principles established centuries later by modern mathematicians

    --from the BBC.

    For the scientists/mathematicians here is the abstract from the actual scientific article:

    Decagonal and Quasi-Crystalline Tilings in Medieval Islamic Architecture

    Peter J. Lu1* and Paul J. Steinhardt2 The conventional view holds that girih (geometric star-and-polygon, or strapwork) patterns in medieval Islamic architecture were conceived by their designers as a network of zigzagging lines, where the lines were drafted directly with a straightedge and a compass. We show that by 1200 C.E. a conceptual breakthrough occurred in which girih patterns were reconceived as tessellations of a special set of equilateral polygons ("girih tiles") decorated with lines. These tiles enabled the creation of increasingly complex periodic girih patterns, and by the 15th century, the tessellation approach was combined with self-similar transformations to construct nearly perfect quasi-crystalline Penrose patterns, five centuries before their discovery in the West.
    [SIZE=-1] 1 Department of Physics, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA.
    2 Department of Physics and Princeton Center for Theoretical Physics, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544, USA. [/SIZE]
     
    Last edited: Feb 24, 2007

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