Tile Day, really? Heh, definitely
.
Tile is a world of its own and one can get lost in it. For example there are types of types of tile, they may be classified according to the material they re made of; ceramic, clay, vinyl, glass, porcelain, and the like, whether certain types are glazed or not , whether they are decorative or not, the intended or usual use such as floor tiles, roofing tiles, wall tiles, ceiling tiles, and much more. Because they have been around for ages they can be classified as to their age or era, broadly such as ancient or antique, or specifically as "Arts and Crafts", "nouveau" or "Moderne", etc. Their use or installation can run from mosaics to decorative to purely utilitarian and things in between. One can easily filll large amounts of storage with pictures of very artistic or intriguing tiles or tiled surfaces that one runs across in one's travels. Go to a photo source, like flick'r, and search on tile, tiles, tiled floors, tiled wills and the like and you can burn through a heck of a lot of time. And that's without even mentioning mosaics.

But, "Tile" isn't just a noun and is, to an extent, two different verbs from two different worlds. To set or lay tile is to tile something. One tiles a floor or a shower enclosure or kitchen counter, etc. This is one of those trades that is also an art and shades off into an art form. And, as with tile itself, it can be purely utilitarian, decorative, art, or some blend. This usage is something a human craftsman or artisan does.

Another usage of the verb to Tile is mathermatical and it is shapes, not people (or robots) doing the tiling. Specific shapes do or do not "tile" specific surfaces, normally planes. If they do, such tilings can re repeitive or not and at different scales. For example, squares, hexagons and equilateral tiangles all tile a plane, equal sized replicas of each of those shapes can be positioned edge to edge in such a fashion as to cover an entire planar surface with no gaps, which is what it means to tile the plane. In addition to single identical shapes, tiling questions and problems can pertain to specific clusters of shapes, such as so called "penrose tiles". There have been conjectures and theorems concerning such tilings. For example, it was long held that if a shape could tile a plane or other dimensional space, it could only do so in a periodic fashion, forming a pattern that repeated itself at some interval. This is now known to be false. Some of the tiling questions have only been resolved quite recently. One major breakthrough came as recently as November, 2022 with the discovery of a so-called "einstein tile". There is a nice article on it and related matters here:
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/newfound-mathematical-einstei...

Piled Higher and Deeper:
Penrose Tiles

Einstein Tiles

On this day in history:

532 – Byzantine emperor Justinian I laid the foundation stone of a new Orthodox Christian basilica in Constantinople – the Hagia Sophia.

705 – Empress Wu Zetian abdicated the throne, restoring the Tang dynasty.

1455 – Traditionally the date of publication of the Gutenberg Bible, the first known Western book printed with movable type.

1725 – J. S. Bach led his Tafel-Music Shepherd Cantata for the birthday of Christian, Duke of Saxe-Weissenfels.

1763 – Berbice Rebellion in Guyana: The first major slave revolt in South America, celebrated as Republic Day in Guyana

1778 – Baron von Steuben arrived at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, to help train the Continental Army.

1836 – The Siege of the Alamo (prelude to the Battle of the Alamo) begins in San Antonio, Texas.

1883 – Alabama became the first U.S. state to enact an anti-trust law.>BR>

1886 – Charles Martin Hall produced the first samples of aluminium from the electrolysis of aluminium oxide

1898 – Émile Zola was imprisoned in France after writing J'Accuse…!,

1903 – Cuba leased Guantánamo Bay to the United States "in perpetuity".

1909 – The AEA Silver Dart made the first powered flight in Canada and the British Empire.

1917 – First demonstrations in Saint Petersburg, Russia, beginning the February Revolution (March 8 in the Gregorian calendar).

1927 – U.S. President Calvin Coolidge signed a bill establishing the Federal Radio Commission (later replaced by the Federal Communications Commission) which was to regulate the use of radio frequencies in the United States. *

1927 – German theoretical physicist Werner Heisenberg wrote a letter to fellow physicist Wolfgang Pauli, in which he described his uncertainty principle for the first time.

1941 – Plutonium was first produced and isolated by Dr. Glenn T. Seaborg.

1945 – During the Battle of Iwo Jima, a group of United States Marines reached the top of Mount Suribachi on the island and were photographed raising the American flag.

1947 – International Organization for Standardization was founded.

1954 – The first mass inoculation of children against polio with the Salk vaccine** began in Pittsburgh.

1980 – Iran Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini stated that Iran's parliament would decide the fate of the American embassy hostages
.

1983 – The United States Environmental Protection Agency announced its intent to buy out and evacuate the dioxin-contaminated community of Times Beach, Missouri.

2010 – Unknown businessmen poured more than 2+1⁄2 million liters of diesel oil and other hydrocarbons into the river Lambro, in northern Italy, sparking an environmental disaster.

2020 – Ahmaud Arbery, a 25-year-old black US citizen, was murdered by three white men after visiting a house under construction while jogging

2021 – Four simultaneous prison riots left at least 62 people dead in Ecuador.

* Until the industry was de-regulated in 1996 by Bill Reagan Clinton
** This was an "old style" vaccine that prevented people from getting the disease

Some people who were born on this day:

"Either America will destroy ignorance or ignorance will destroy the United States."

~~ W.E.B. Du Bois

1529 – Onofrio Panvinio, historian
1633 – Samuel Pepys, diarist and politician
1685 – George Frideric Handel, organist and composer
1868 – W. E. B. Du Bois, sociologist, historian, and activist
1883 – Karl Jaspers, psychiatrist and philosopher
1883 – Guy C. Wiggins, painter
1884 – Casimir Funk, biochemist
1892 – Agnes Smedley, journalist and writer
1899 – Erich Kästner, author and poet
1904 – William L. Shirer, journalist and historian
1922 – Johnny Franz, record producer
1924 – Allan McLeod Cormack, physicist and academic
1927 – Jessica Huntley, activist and publisher
1931 – Tom Wesselmann, painter and sculptor
1944 – Florian Fricke, keyboard player and composer
1944 – Johnny Winter, singer, songwriter, guitarist, and producer
1946 – Rusty Young, singer, songwriter, and guitarist (died 2021)
1948 – Steve Priest, singer, songwriter, and bass player (died 2020)
1950 – John Greaves, bass guitarist and composer[42]
1952 – Brad Whitford, guitarist and songwriter[38]
1953 – Kenny Bee, singer, songwriter, guitarist, and actor
1955 – Howard Jones, singer and songwriter[38]
1958 – David Sylvian, singer and songwriter
1959 – Linda Nolan, singer and actress (died 2025)[46]
1962 – Michael Wilton, guitarist
1964 – John Norum, guitarist and songwriter
1967 – Chris Vrenna, drummer, songwriter, and producer
1975 – Robert Lopez, songwriter and playwright[38]
1978 – Residente, singer and songwriter[38]
1986 – Skylar Grey, singer and songwriter
1986 – Kazuya Kamenashi, singer and songwriter and actor
1986 – Ola Svensson, singer and songwriter
1987 – Theophilus London, singer, songwriter and producer

Some people who died on this day:

You say that faith is a gift; this is perhaps the most correct thing that can be said about it.

~~ Carl Friedrich Gauß

1603 – Franciscus Vieta, mathematician
1704 – Georg Muffat, organist and composer
1792 – Joshua Reynolds, painter and academic
1821 – John Keats, poet, flunked history
1855 – Carl Friedrich Gauss, mathematician, astronomer, and physicist
1897 – Woldemar Bargiel, composer and educator
1934 – Edward Elgar, composer and academic
1973 – Dickinson W. Richards, physician and physiologist
1974 – Harry Ruby, composer and screenwriter
1983 – Herbert Howells, organist and composer
1995 – James Herriot, veterinarian and author
1997 – Tony Williams, drummer, composer, and producer
2003 – Howie Epstein, bass player, songwriter, and producer
2012 – David Sayre, physicist and mathematician
2025 – Chris Jasper, singer, composer and producer

Some Holidays, Holy Days, Festivals, Feast Days, Days of Recognition, and such:

National Banana Bread Day
National Tile Day
Republic Day (Guyana)

Today's Tunes

Tiling the plane

International Organization for Standardization

George Frideric Handel

Johnny Franz

Florian Fricke

Johnny Winter

Rusty Young

Woldemar Bargiel

Edward Elgar

Harry Ruby

Tony Williams

Howie Epstein

Chris Jasper

National Banana Republic Bread Day

Ok, it's an open thread, so it's up to you folks now. What's on your mind?

Cross posted from http://caucus99percent.com

open thread, Tile Day, Du Bois, Gauss, Handel, Johnny Winter, Rusty Young, Elgar