Einstein shape makes TIME’s 2023 Best Inventions List

Tuesday, October 24, 2023

Earlier this year, Cheriton School of Computer Science Professor Craig S. Kaplan and his international colleagues David Smith, Joseph Myers and Chaim Goodman-Strauss discovered a single shape, which they called the hat, that tiles the plane — an infinite, two-dimensional surface — in a pattern that can never be made to repeat. 

Now, that shape has been chosen by TIME magazine as one of the best inventions of 2023

Of the new list, TIME’s editors write: “The result is a list of 200 groundbreaking inventions (and 50 special mention inventions) — including the world’s most powerful supercomputer, a game-changing entertainment venue, and a new shape — that are changing how we live, work, play, and think about what’s possible.”

photo of Craig S. Kaplan in front of a wall of hat-shaped einstein tiles in the newly renovated CG lab

Professor Craig S. Kaplan stands in front of a wall of hat-shaped einstein tiles in the newly renovated Computer Graphics Lab in the Davis Centre, the building that houses the Cheriton School of Computer Science.

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