An Algebraic Realization of the Taylor-Socolar Aperiodic Monotilings

Abstract

The first aperiodic monotiling, introduced by Taylor, was based on a trapezoidal prototile equipped with 14 distinct decorations. A presentation of the closely related Taylor-Socolar aperiodic monotiling is based on a hexagonal prototile equipped with 7 decorations. This paper gives decoration-free algebraic descriptions equivalent to each of these presentations. It also shows how the monotilings and Taylor triangles pattern that characterizes the aperiodicity can be obtained from just one algebraic equation.