Secrets from a bathroom floor

September 2009

An exhaustive algorithm for finding mixed tilings

Step 1 Let $k$ be either 3, 4, 5, or 6. Step 2 Set $c := \frac{k-2}{2} = \frac{1}{n_1}+\frac{1}{n_2}+...+\frac{1}{n_ k}.$ Step 3 Set $n$ to be the biggest whole number less than or equal to $\frac{c}{k}$ . Note that not all $n_ i$ can be bigger than $n$ , for otherwise

$\frac{1}{n_1}+\frac{1}{n_2}+...+\frac{1}{n_ k} < c.$

Step 4 Suppose $n_1$

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