Coronavirus 20

I Painted this over twenty years ago.

6250 Small Triangles, Conway's Aperiodic Monotiling.
Acrylic on paper 40 x 75 cm

Each right-angled triangle has two sides of lengths in ratio 1:2:square root 5. The smaller angle is the tangent of 0.5. This is an irrational number so does not divide exactly into 360 degrees. The change from one size generation of triangle to the next involves a rotation about an angle of tan 0.5, which being irrational does not divide exactly into 360 or any multiple thereof. The pattern could be extended outwards to infinity in all directions but the regular rotations by an irrational angle ensures that the pattern can never repeat. It is an aperiodic tiling. It was first described by John Conway, an English mathematician.

John Conway died after contracting COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus SARS-CoV-2. The pandemic could have been prevented by timely government preparedness and action but short term economic interests were placed ahead of national and global security and ahead of humanity.

John Conway lost his last round in the Game of Life, his opponents, those who disregarded science and mathematics.


There is an obituary on The Register.