5 research outputs found
Tilings of an Isosceles Triangle
An N-tiling of triangle ABC by triangle T is a way of writing ABC as a union
of N trianglescongruent to T, overlapping only at their boundaries. The
triangle T is the "tile". The tile may or may not be similar to ABC. In this
paper we study the case of isosceles (but not equilateral) ABC. We study three
possible forms of the tile: right-angled, or with one angle double another, or
with a 120 degree angle. In the case of a right-angled tile, we give a complete
characterization of the tilings, for N even, but leave open whether N can be
odd. In the latter two cases we prove the ratios of the sides of the tile are
rational, and give a necessary condition for the existence of an N-tiling. For
the case when the tile has one angle double another, we prove N cannot be prime
or twice a prime.Comment: 34 pages, 18 figures. This version supplies corrections and
simplification