Hexagon tilings of the plane that are not edge-to-edge (Q2043735)

A tiling of the plane with convex polygons is normal by \textit{B. Grünbaum} and \textit{G. C. Shephard} [Tilings and patterns. New York: W. H. Freeman and Company (1987; Zbl 0601.05001)] if there exist two positive numbers \(r\) and \(R\) such that every tile contains some circular disk of radius \(r\) and is contained in some circular disk of radius \(R\). An irregular vertex in a tiling by polygons is a vertex of one tile that belongs to the interior of an edge of another tile. The main result of the paper under review is that for any integer \(k \ge 3\), there exists a normal tiling of the Euclidean plane by convex hexagons of unit area with exactly \(k\) irregular vertices. \par Also the authors show that there are normal edge-to-edge tilings of the plane with hexagons of unit area and exactly \(k\) many \(n\)-gons (\(n > 6\)) of unit area. A result of \textit{A. Akopyan} [C. R., Math., Acad. Sci. Paris 356, No. 4, 412--414 (2018; Zbl 1388.52014)] yields an upper bound for \(k\). In the paper, this result is complemented with a lower bound for the extremal case, thus showing that Akopyan's bound is asymptotically tight.