ABSTRACT
Tilings of surfaces and packings of space have interested artisans and manufacturers throughout history; they are a means of artistic expression and lend economy and strength to modular constructions. Today scientists and mathematicians study tilings because they pose interesting mathematical questions and provide mathematical models for such diverse fields as the molecular anatomy of crystals, cell packings of viruses, n-dimensional algebraic codes, “nearest neighbor" regions for a set of discrete points, meshes for computational geometry, CW-complexes in topology, the self-assembly of nano-structures, and the study of aperiodic order.
