Square_tiling

Square tiling

Square tiling

Regular tiling of the Euclidean plane


In geometry, the square tiling, square tessellation or square grid is a regular tiling of the Euclidean plane. It has Schläfli symbol of {4,4}, meaning it has 4 squares around every vertex. Conway called it a quadrille.

Square tiling
Square tiling
TypeRegular tiling
Vertex configuration4.4.4.4 (or 44)
Face configurationV4.4.4.4 (or V44)
Schläfli symbol(s){4,4}
{}×{}
Wythoff symbol(s)4 | 2 4
Coxeter diagram(s)




Symmetryp4m, [4,4], (*442)
Rotation symmetryp4, [4,4]+, (442)
Dualself-dual
PropertiesVertex-transitive, edge-transitive, face-transitive
Industrial use of a square tiling in an RBMK reactor

The internal angle of the square is 90 degrees so four squares at a point make a full 360 degrees. It is one of three regular tilings of the plane. The other two are the triangular tiling and the hexagonal tiling.

Uniform colorings

There are 9 distinct uniform colorings of a square tiling. Naming the colors by indices on the 4 squares around a vertex: 1111, 1112(i), 1112(ii), 1122, 1123(i), 1123(ii), 1212, 1213, 1234. (i) cases have simple reflection symmetry, and (ii) glide reflection symmetry. Three can be seen in the same symmetry domain as reduced colorings: 1112i from 1213, 1123i from 1234, and 1112ii reduced from 1123ii.

More information 9 uniform colorings, 1112i ...

This tiling is topologically related as a part of sequence of regular polyhedra and tilings, extending into the hyperbolic plane: {4,p}, p=3,4,5...

More information Spherical, Euclidean ...

This tiling is also topologically related as a part of sequence of regular polyhedra and tilings with four faces per vertex, starting with the octahedron, with Schläfli symbol {n,4}, and Coxeter diagram , with n progressing to infinity.

More information Spherical, Euclidean ...
More information *n42 symmetry mutations of quasiregular dual tilings: V(4.n)2, Symmetry*4n2 [n,4] ...
More information Symmetry [n,4], (*n42), Spherical ...

Wythoff constructions from square tiling

Like the uniform polyhedra there are eight uniform tilings that can be based from the regular square tiling.

Drawing the tiles colored as red on the original faces, yellow at the original vertices, and blue along the original edges, all 8 forms are distinct. However treating faces identically, there are only three topologically distinct forms: square tiling, truncated square tiling, snub square tiling.

More information Symmetry: [4,4], (*442), [4,4]+, (442) ...

Topologically equivalent tilings

An isogonal variation with two types of faces, seen as a snub square tiling with trangle pairs combined into rhombi.
Topological square tilings can be made with concave faces and more than one edge shared between two faces. This variation has 3 edges shared.

Other quadrilateral tilings can be made which are topologically equivalent to the square tiling (4 quads around every vertex).

A 2-isohedral variation with rhombic faces

Isohedral tilings have identical faces (face-transitivity) and vertex-transitivity, there are 18 variations, with 6 identified as triangles that do not connect edge-to-edge, or as quadrilateral with two collinear edges. Symmetry given assumes all faces are the same color.[1]

More information Square p4m, (*442), Quadrilateral p4g, (4*2) ...
More information Isosceles pmg, (22*), Isosceles pgg, (22×) ...

Circle packing

The square tiling can be used as a circle packing, placing equal diameter circles at the center of every point. Every circle is in contact with 4 other circles in the packing (kissing number).[2] The packing density is π/4=78.54% coverage. There are 4 uniform colorings of the circle packings.

There are 3 regular complex apeirogons, sharing the vertices of the square tiling. Regular complex apeirogons have vertices and edges, where edges can contain 2 or more vertices. Regular apeirogons p{q}r are constrained by: 1/p + 2/q + 1/r = 1. Edges have p vertices, and vertex figures are r-gonal.[3]

More information Self-dual, Duals ...

See also


References

  1. Tilings and patterns, from list of 107 isohedral tilings, p.473-481
  2. Order in Space: A design source book, Keith Critchlow, p.74-75, circle pattern 3
  3. Coxeter, Regular Complex Polytopes, pp. 111-112, p. 136.
  • Coxeter, H.S.M. Regular Polytopes, (3rd edition, 1973), Dover edition, ISBN 0-486-61480-8 p. 296, Table II: Regular honeycombs
  • Klitzing, Richard. "2D Euclidean tilings o4o4x - squat - O1".
  • Williams, Robert (1979). The Geometrical Foundation of Natural Structure: A Source Book of Design. Dover Publications, Inc. ISBN 0-486-23729-X. p36
  • Grünbaum, Branko; Shephard, G. C. (1987). Tilings and Patterns. New York: W. H. Freeman. ISBN 0-7167-1193-1. (Chapter 2.1: Regular and uniform tilings, p. 58-65)
  • John H. Conway, Heidi Burgiel, Chaim Goodman-Strauss, The Symmetries of Things 2008, ISBN 978-1-56881-220-5
More information , ...

Share this article:

This article uses material from the Wikipedia article Square_tiling, and is written by contributors. Text is available under a CC BY-SA 4.0 International License; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.