| | | Professor Sir Roger Penrose
~ On non periodic tilings ~
The second talk of the day was from the mathematician who, more than any other, brought to the general public the idea that an infinite tiling of the plane does not have to be periodic. Now in his early nineties, Roger Penrose reminisced about his discovery in 1974 of the aperiodic tilings that now carry his name. I was fascinated to learn that Johannes Kepler, famous for his three laws of planetary motion, had a diagram in his book Harmonices Mundi, published in 1691, that, had it been extended, would have been aperiodic. There was a charm to Roger's presentation which featured photographs of overhead projector slides that he had drawn by hand for his lectures to undergraduates many years ago. More than anything, it was simply great to be in the presence of a living legend. Afterward, I stood in the courtyard of the Mathematical Institute, taking the photograph, above right, of his famous kites and darts aperiodic tiling as it glittered in the sun.
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