Great Public Lecture by Sébastien Labbé

On March 12, 2023, Sébastien Labbé, as part of the International Day of Mathematics, gave a Great Public Lecture at the Centre de recherches mathématiques, a Quebec partner of the international CRM-CNRS laboratory.

Aperiodic tilings are a vast scientific field, both in mathematics and in understanding the crystalline structure of matter. The aperiodic tilings proposed by Penrose in 1974 use two shapes of tiles, and the frequency ratio of the two types of tiles is equal to the golden ratio.

Several aperiodic tilings discovered since, such as the Ammann tilings (1980s) or the Jeandel-Rao tilings (2015), are also associated with the golden ratio. And the golden ratio appears again for the aperiodic monotile named “hat” discovered in 2023.

During his lecture, Sébastien Labbé explored aperiodic tilings and the role of the golden ratio in these tilings. Polygonal pieces cut by laser were made available to the participants during the presentation, allowing for experimentation and appropriation of the concepts.

Sébastien Labbé is a research officer at CNRS assigned to CRM-CNRS.