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A small aperiodic set of Wang tiles. (English) Zbl 0861.05017
A Wang tile is a unit square tile with colored edges. Consider tilings of the Euclidean plane by arbitrarily many copies from a given finite tile set $$T$$ of Wang tiles translated to integer lattice points and such that contiguous edges have the same color. Such a tiling, determined by a function $$f:Z^2\to T$$, is periodic if there exists $$(a,b)\in Z^2\backslash\{(0,0)\}$$ such that $$f(x,y)= f(x+a,y+b)$$ for every $$(x,y)\in Z^2$$. A tile set $$T$$ is called aperiodic if there exists a tiling, but there does not exist any periodic tiling. In 1966 R. Berger [Mem. Am. Math. Soc. 66 (1966; Zbl 0199.30802)] constructed an aperiodic tile set consisting of over 20,000 Wang tiles. The number has since been reduced, including a set consisting of 16 Wang tiles due to R. Amman. In the paper under review, the number is further reduced to 14 Wang tiles.

##### MSC:
 05B45 Combinatorial aspects of tessellation and tiling problems 52C20 Tilings in $$2$$ dimensions (aspects of discrete geometry)
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##### References:
 [1] Beatty, S.; Beatty, S., Problem 3173, Am. math. monthly, Am. math. monthly, 34, 159, (1927), solutions in · JFM 53.0198.06 [2] Berger, R., The undecidability of the domino problem, Mem. amer. math. soc., 66, (1966) · Zbl 0199.30802 [3] Grünbaum, B.; Shephard, G.C., Tilings and patterns, (1987), W.H. Freeman and Company New York · Zbl 0601.05001
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