- Heptomino
A heptomino (or 7-omino) is a
polyomino of order 7, that is, apolygon in the plane made of 7 equal-sized squares connected edge-to-edge. As with other polyominoes,rotation s and reflections of a heptomino are not considered to be distinct shapes and with this convention, there are108 different "free" heptominoes. [cite web| last=Weisstein |first= Eric W. |url=http://mathworld.wolfram.com/Heptomino.html |title=Heptomino |publisher=From MathWorld--A Wolfram Web Resource |accessdate=2008-07-22]The figure shows all possible heptominoes, coloured according to their
symmetry group s:* 84 heptominoes (coloured grey) have no
symmetry . Their symmetry groups consist only of theidentity map ping* 9 heptominoes (coloured red) have an axis of
reflection symmetry aligned with the gridlines. Their symmetry groups have two elements, the identity and a reflection in a line parallel to the sides of the squares.::* 7 heptominoes (coloured green) have an axis of reflection symmetry at 45° to the gridlines. Their symmetry groups have two elements, the identity and a diagonal reflection.::
* 4 heptominoes (coloured blue) have point symmetry, also known as
rotational symmetry of order 2. Their symmetry groups have two elements, the identity and a 180° rotation.::* 3 heptominoes (coloured purple) have two axes of reflection symmetry, both aligned with the gridlines. Their symmetry groups have four elements.::
* 1 heptomino (also coloured purple) has two axes of reflection symmetry, both aligned with the diagonals. Its symmetry groups has four elements.
If reflections of a heptomino were to be considered distinct, as they are with one-sided heptominoes, then the first and fourth categories above would each double in size, resulting in an extra 88 heptominoes for a total of 196 distinct one-sided heptominoes.
Packing and tiling
Although a complete set of 108 heptominoes has a total of 756 squares, it is not possible to pack them into a
rectangle . The proof of this is trivial, since there is one heptomino which has a hole.Not all heptominoes are capable of tiling the plane; the one with a hole is one such example. In fact, under some definitions, figures such as this are not considered to be polyominoes because they are not topological disks. [cite book|last=Grünbaum |first=Branko |authorlink=Branko Grünbaum |coauthors=Shephard, G. C. |title=Tilings and Patterns |location=New York |publisher=W. H. Freeman and Company |year=1987 |isbn=0-7167-1193-1]
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References and external links
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