The Infinite Pattern That Never Repeats

Veritasium · 21.9M views · 2020-09-30 · 21:12

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Overview

Veritasium explains how Penrose tilings and quasicrystals overturned the belief that 5-fold symmetry and non-periodic crystals were impossible, including an interview with Paul Steinhardt.

On Hacker News

Strongly recommended as a mind-bending, approachable explanation of aperiodic patterns, even enjoyable with kids.

Recommended by 4 HN people across 3 months · HN mentions 2021–2023

Topics

Recreational & visual math Materials science Pure mathematics

What people said

MontagFTB · 2023-03 · Strong recommendation
My kids and I geeked out over the Veritasium video on Penrose tiles ( [VIDEO] ). It is pretty exciting to see approachable math like this being discovered before our eyes.
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belter · 2021-07 · Strong recommendation
Great video thanks for sharing. My brain still hurting, it tried to explode at 14.38 :-) [VIDEO] Also quite interesting these are found in a few meteorites. I wonder if somebody is confidentially keeping some quasicrystal with very special properties somewhere. "Third-ever natural quasicrystal found in Siberian meteorite" [LINK]
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pseudolus · 2021-05 · Strong recommendation
The Youtube channel "Veritasium" featured a great video on Penrose tilings and their relationship to quasicrystals [0]. A fascinating example of a mathematical discovery with a previously unsuspected physical incarnation. [0] [VIDEO]
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Sources

Video by Veritasium, played through YouTube.

HN Library · Source license

Data and selection notes

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