POSSIBILITIES AND IMPOSSIBILITIES IN SQUARE-TILING

Abstract

A set of natural numbers tiles the plane if a square-tiling of the plane exists using exactly one square of sidelength n for every n in the set. From Ref. 8 we know that ℕ itself tiles the plane. From that and Ref. 9 we know that the set of even numbers tiles the plane while the set of odd numbers doesn't. In this paper we explore the nature of this property. We show, for example, that neither tiling nor non-tiling is preserved by superset. We show that a set with one or three odd numbers may tile the plane—but a set with two odd numbers can't. We find examples of both tiling and non-tiling sets that can be partitioned into tiling sets, non-tiling sets or a combination. We show that any set growing faster than the Fibonacci numbers cannot tile the plane.