n^2 + 1 unit equilateral triangles cannot cover an equilateral triangle of side > n if all triangles have parallel sides

MaRDI QIDQ6440478zbMATH OpenFDO

Authors Jineon Baek, Seewoo Lee

Publication date 15 June 2023

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Combinatorial aspects of packing and covering (05B40) Packing and covering in (2) dimensions (aspects of discrete geometry) (52C15)

Abstract: Conway and Soifer showed that an equilateral triangle $T$ of side $n+varepsilon$ with sufficiently small $varepsilon>0$ can be covered by $n^2+2$ unit equilateral triangles. They conjectured that it is impossible to cover $T$ with $n^2+1$ unit equilateral triangles no matter how small $varepsilon$ is. We make progress towards their conjecture by showing that if we require the sides of all triangles to be parallel to the sides of $T$ (e.g. $$ and $$), then it is impossible to cover $T$ with $n^2+1$ unit equilateral triangles for any $varepsilon>0$. As the coverings of $T$ by Conway and Soifer only involve triangles with parallel sides, our result determines the exact minimum number $n^2+2$ of unit equilateral triangles with parallel sides required to cover $T$.

This page was built for publication: $n^2 + 1$ unit equilateral triangles cannot cover an equilateral triangle of side $> n$ if all triangles have parallel sides

Report a bug (only for logged in users!)Click here to report a bug for this page (MaRDI item Q6440478)