When Peter J. Lu traveled to Uzbekistan, he had no idea of the mathematical journey that he was about to embark on as well. The Harvard graduate student in physics was fascinated by the beautiful and ...

Islamic architects and mathematicians were creating quasi-crystalline patterns some 500 years before similar patterns were described in the West, claim two physicists in the US. Peter J Lu of Harvard ...

The complex geometrical designs used centuries ago in Islamic art and architecture were planned with a tiling system that was not discovered in the West until five centuries later, two physicists have ...

Ah, tiles. You can get square ones, and do a grid, or you can get fancier shapes and do something altogether more complex. By and large though, whatever pattern you choose, it will normally end up ...

Moving pictures: microscope image of a quasicrystal two days after release. The right half has been colour coded. (Courtesy: Po-Yuan Wang and Thomas Mason/Nature) A quasicrystal made from tiny Penrose ...

If someone asked you to walk in a straight line over a constantly shifting floor, you would probably declare it impossible after a few tries and a couple of grazed knees. Researchers studying a ...

A theoretical computer built in a mixed-up mathematical universe might not sound like the most practical invention. But the discovery shows that computation can turn up in the most unlikely places, ...

Ah, tiles. You can get square ones, and do a grid, or you can get fancier shapes and do something altogether more complex. By and large though, whatever pattern you choose, it will normally end up ...