The original version of this story appeared in Quanta Magazine. If you want to tile a bathroom floor, square tiles are the simplest option—they fit together without any gaps in a grid pattern that can ...

When is a crystal not a crystal? When it’s a quasi-crystal, a paradoxical form of metal recently found in some 3D printed metal alloys by [A.D. Iams et al] at the American National Institute for ...

Mathematicians have described 1 a new class of shape that characterizes forms commonly found in nature — from the chambers in the iconic spiral shell of the nautilus to the way in which seeds pack ...

If you want to tile a bathroom floor, square tiles are the simplest option — they fit together without any gaps in a grid pattern that can continue indefinitely. That square grid has a property shared ...