Peter J. Lu1* and Paul J. Steinhardt2
The conventional view holds that girih (geometric star-and-polygon, or strapwork) patterns in medieval Islamic architecture were conceived by their designers as a network of zigzagging lines, where the lines were drafted directly with a straightedge and a compass. We show that by 1200 C.E. a conceptual breakthrough occurred in which girih patterns were reconceived as tessellations of a special set of equilateral polygons ("girih tiles") decorated with lines. These tiles enabled the creation of increasingly complex periodic girih patterns, and by the 15th century, the tessellation approach was combined with self-similar transformations to construct nearly perfect quasi-crystalline Penrose patterns, five centuries before their discovery in the West
Peter J. Lu1* and Paul J. Steinhardt2
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Dear Readers,
The Lu-Steihardt research raises new interesting hypotheses:
1) Is it, the work of all Arts, a shapes'mirror showing in a simple undiscovery way, the ethernal laws of matter and antimatter?
2) Is it, every Knowledge, expleined by Nature in endless multiform pattern?
3) Is it, every Knowlegde acted by Humankind unconsciously from
our origin trought the history's time?
4) Is it, the Artist truly consciously penetrated into the architetture of Cosmos?
Sorry for my English,
Anna Laura Serra.
