cp's OEIS Frontend

This is a front-end for the Online Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences, made by Christian Perfect. The idea is to provide OEIS entries in non-ancient HTML, and then to think about how they're presented visually. The source code is on GitHub.

A317541 Number of tilings of a sphinx of order n with n^2 - 2 elementary sphinxes and a single sphinx domino that has two different tilings.

Original entry on oeis.org

0, 0, 0, 5, 18, 48170, 8361983
Offset: 0

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Author

Craig Knecht, Jul 30 2018

Keywords

Comments

Small areas within the sphinx that are capable of multiple tilings are important drivers of the total enumeration.
The smallest area that can have two different tilings with the elementary sphinx is a sphinx domino. This unique domino is replaced with a single tile defect for this sequence. This domino is called a flacon.
This replacement causes fewer tilings for sphinxes of orders six and below and more tilings for the order seven sphinx when compared to a pure sphinx tiling A279887. Figuring out why that happens makes this sequence interesting.
The 153 order 5 pure sphinx tilings are shown in the links below. The 12 tile aspects are color coded. The blacked out areas show the tiles that change from tiling a(n) to a(n+1). Tilings #4 and #13 show the smallest areas that have two different tilings. Tilings # 63 and # 64 show that all sphinx tiles will change position in going through the 153 examples. This particular listing has tiling pairs that always share 2 or more sphinx tiles that do not change position. The sphinx tiles that change position are always edge joined.
Combining the 12 aspects of the sphinx tile produces 46 sphinx dominoes. Sphinx domino tiling is compared with sphinx tiling in the order 4 sphinx (see link below). - Craig Knecht, Sep 08 2018

Crossrefs

Cf. A279887.