The National Taiwan Science Education Center is hosting an event yesterday and today to observe the International Day of Mathematics and help people see mathematics in a new light.
The event involves students and faculty from 30 universities of science and technology, as well as organizations hoping to promote interest in mathematics, and features eight MathTalk seminars, 13 workshops and a musical theater piece introducing Hedy Lamarr to the public, according to the center.
Lamarr and American composer George Antheil filed — and were granted — a patent for a “secret communications system involving the use of carrier waves of different frequencies, especially useful in the remote control of dirigible craft, such as torpedoes.” The process, known as frequency hopping, formed the basis of Bluetooth and Wi-Fi technology as we know it today.
Photo courtesy of the National Taiwan Science Education Center via CNA
The center’s event features the 13-sided polygon that helped solve the “einstein problem.” Event visitors are encouraged to play with the prototile and come up with their own designs.
David Smith, an amateur mathematician, published a paper in 2023 touting the prototile, which he discovered using a software package called PolyForm Puzzle Solver, to solve the “einstein problem,” which in plane geometry is the question of whether one single shape can form an aperiodic set of prototiles.
The problem is not related to Albert Einstein, the physicist, but is instead a play on the German phrase ein Stein, which means “one stone.”
Center director Liu Huo-chin (劉火欽) said commonly seen shapes in mathematics, such as the square or the hexagon, would form repetitive patterns when placed together, adding that the prototile discovered by Smith would not.
He said the discovery affected mathematics and could be applied to materials science, crystallography and encryption.
The center hopes that the exposure of event visitors to the prototile would help them understand the main theme of this year’s International Day of Mathematics, Mathematics, Art, and Creativity, Liu said.
The event is cohosted by the National Taiwan Science Education Center and the Mathematical Society of the Republic of China.
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