Happy birthday to Marjorie Rice (née Jeuck, 1923–2017) who discovered 4 new pentagonal tilings of the Euclidian plane! 🐡🐡👩🏼‍🔬🧮 #histsci The San Diego mother of 5 (6th died in infancy) completed half a correspondence art course after high school & had no training as a #mathematician but was always 🧵 - ThreadSky

minouette.bsky.social • 7 days ago

Happy birthday to Marjorie Rice (née Jeuck, 1923–2017) who discovered 4 new pentagonal tilings of the Euclidian plane! 🐡🐡👩🏼‍🔬🧮 #histsci

The San Diego mother of 5 (6th died in infancy) completed half a correspondence art course after high school & had no training as a #mathematician but was always 🧵

Comments

mariannedenton.bsky.social•7 days ago

What an inspirational series!

minouette.bsky.social•7 days ago

Thank you!

minouette.bsky.social•7 days ago

interested in #math & art. She began to follow SciAm writer/amateur mathematician Martin Gardner’s column, rushing to devour the magazine before her son (who had the subscription). He reported in July, 1975, that Kershner had finally found all the remaining convex polygons which could make

minouette.bsky.social•7 days ago

tessellations to tile the plane. The next month, a reader, Richard James III found a new convex pentagon tiler. Rice was inspired to start her own search.

She spent her spare time discretely drawing diagrams on the kitchen table which she hid when her husband, kids or friends stopped by. She

minouette.bsky.social•7 days ago

succeeded by February, 1976, & wrote Gardner of her new pentagon type & its variations in shape with which she could tile the plane. She had developed her own notation system to describe shapes. He forwarded Rice’s letter to mathematician & tiling pattern expert Doris Schattschneider.

minouette.bsky.social•7 days ago

Though she was skeptical of Rice’s odd & unique notation system, which she likened to “hieroglyphics” she was able to validate her results. Rice did not stop there. By the following December she found her 4th convex pentagonal tiler & 103 “2-block transitive” pentagon tilings. Through the next

minouette.bsky.social•7 days ago

decade she continued to find more pentagonal tiling patterns & explored aperiodic tilings & she used her discoveries to make tessellation patterns of flowers, shells, butterflies & bees overlain on the geometric shapes (like on her shirt here).

Though she was too shy to ever publish her own

minouette.bsky.social•7 days ago

or give any talks, Schattschneider convinced Rice & her husband to attend her talk about Rice’s work at a meeting of the Mathematical Association of America in 1995. When she was pointed out in the audience, she received a standing ovation!

akilwilson.bsky.social•7 days ago

Whoa!!!! Love this print and the story behind it. Thanks for sharing it!

minouette.bsky.social•7 days ago

Thanks very much!

Comments

Posting Rules

Reply