The artist M.C. Escher’s work often used ingenious tilings of the plane with interlocking figures such as fish and birds. Although these tilings could in principle extend forever, Escher could not show this on a finite picture. But a diagram from a paper by the mathematician Donald Coxeter presented one solution to this conundrum. We will look at the mathematics of this diagram and how Escher used it. We will also see how Coxeter produced mathematical research based on aspects of Escher's work.

The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/escher-and-coxeter-a-mathematical-conversation

Gresham College has been giving free public lectures since 1597. This tradition continues today with all of our five or so public lectures a week being made available for free download from our website. There are currently over 2,000 lectures free to access or download from the website.

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