Mathematics and geometric ornamentation in the medieval Islamic world (Q5917929)

While examples of geometric ornamentation about in medieval Islamic culture, the record of the relationship between the craftsmen who produced the ornaments and the mathematicians is almost non-existent. The texts available and discussed (with ample illustrations) are a treatise intended for craftsmen written by Abu'l Wafā al-Būzjānī, a volume of illustrations, and an anonymous Persian text. The examples given include aperiodic tilings, nontrivial examples of equivalence of area by cut-and-paste methods, a tiling using regular heptagons, and a cubic equation studied by Omar Khayyām derivable from ornamentation problems. The author hopes that a systematic for manuscripts in this field may yield more insight into this fascinating field.