Mathematics
The best way to arrange variously shaped tiles on a surface can lead to complicated mathematical problems - see tessellation for details. Roger Penrose is a British mathematician who has worked with tiling problems - see Penrose tilings.
The artist M. C. Escher was influenced by Moorish mosaics to begin his investigations into tessellation.
The maze designer and artist Adrian Fisher creates modern mosaic using a system involving three principal shapes (Pyramid, Fin and Mitre).
Read more about this topic: Byzantine Mosaic
Famous quotes containing the word mathematics:
“... though mathematics may teach a man how to build a bridge, it is what the Scotch Universities call the humanities, that teach him to be civil and sweet-tempered.”
—Amelia E. Barr (1831–1919)
“The three main medieval points of view regarding universals are designated by historians as realism, conceptualism, and nominalism. Essentially these same three doctrines reappear in twentieth-century surveys of the philosophy of mathematics under the new names logicism, intuitionism, and formalism.”
—Willard Van Orman Quine (b. 1908)