By George Hart for the Museum of Mathematics
Here is a set of laser-cut Truchet tiles with circular arcs, designed to be rearranged in a frame. The top layer parts with the quarter-circle arcs are glued to the squares of the bottom layer. The rule when assembling the tiles is to match high to high and low to low.
With just these two types of pieces, you can make a variety of patterns ranging from only circular islands to only circular lakes, with many possible landscapes in-between. Because the surface is raised, you can also make rubbings with a pencil or crayon to save your favorites to paper.
12 thoughts on “Math Monday: Make a Truchet Tiles Puzzle”
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A set of tiles with these patterns printed on them would make an interesting kitchen floor.
This is an old quilt pattern called “Snowball”, “Boson Puzzle”, or “Baseball”.
Oops! I meant “Boston Puzzle”. No physics here.
Very interesting! The board game Carcassonne (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carcassonne_%28board_game%29) uses a more complex version of Truchet tiling, with multiple tile patterns.
Speaking of games, these tiles reminds me of a game called Amoeba, that I played as a kid. I found it on Boardgamegeek: http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/810/amoeba
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