WASHINGTON – Those wondrously intricate tile mosaics that adorn medieval Islamic architecture may cloak a mastery of geometry not matched in the West for hundreds of years. Historians have long ...

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 ...

Patterning and periodic structures are very important in physics. This led to a tremendous amount of work on learning what shapes can tile an area or fill a volume. It was found that these shapes must ...

Sheema Khan is the author of Of Hockey and Hijab: Reflections of a Canadian Muslim Woman. This year’s Nobel Prize in physics was awarded to Roger Penrose, Andrea Ghez and Reinhard Genzel for their ...

Islamic geometric patterns and architecture represent a profound synthesis of mathematical precision and artistic expression inherent in centuries of cultural heritage. These patterns are not merely ...

Iranian tiles, especially Isfahan tiles and Tabriz tiles, became some of the most important crafts in Iran and were used in churches, mosques, schools, and other buildings. The art of tile making in ...

Remember the graph paper you used at school, the kind that’s covered with tiny squares? It’s the perfect illustration of what mathematicians call a “periodic tiling of space”, with shapes covering an ...