The Muslim design on the left dating from the 1300s may be more than a simple decoration. The tiles on the right show how basic shapes were used to create non-repeating patterns in a process not understood by Western mathematicians until the 1970s.
Read these New York Times and Discover Magazine articles to learn more. See more pictures here. Also, if you click on "Peter J. Lu" above, and then scroll down, you can watch the Flash Video of his Harvard Physics Department colloquium on this work.
