Free Republic

A nearly 60-year-old mathematical problem has finally been solved. The story began last fall when David Smith, a retired print technician from Yorkshire, England, came upon a shape with a tantalizing property. The life-long tiling enthusiast discovered a 13-sided shape — dubbed the hat — that is able to fill the infinite plane without overlaps or gaps in a pattern that not only never repeats but also never can be made to repeat. This elusive shape is known to mathematicians as an aperiodic monotile or an einstein, a clever pun that takes its name from the German words ein and...

An amateur mathematician in the United Kingdom may have solved a 60-year-old problem in geometry, garnering the attention of researchers. CNN reported David Smith, a retired printing technician, has discovered a shape known as an “einstein,” which can be tiled over a surface without the pattern repeating. The outlet noted mathematicians first began working on this problem in the 1960s. Smith and three coauthors, Joseph Samuel Myers, Craig S. Kaplan, and Chaim Goodman-Strauss, published a paper explaining Smith’s finding. Smith, who says he is “always looking for an interesting shape,” wrote a blog post to serve as a “scrapbook” of...

A Russian spy at the British embassy in Berlin was caught by a sting operation, the OId Bailey has heard. Briton David Ballantyne Smith, 58, was working as a security guard when he passed secret information to Russian authorities. The court heard how two fake Russian operatives working undercover helped lead to his arrest in August 2021. Prosecutors claim Smith held strong anti-UK views and was paid for information. ... Items seized from his flat included travel documents and sheets of blank embassy headed paper. Photographs taken at that address showed a Russian Federation flag, a Soviet military hat, a...

You can’t judge an artist biography by its cover, but based on its size, you can tell a lot about who’s being profiled before you even read the first page. Mark Stevens and Annalyn Swan wrote a truly great biography of the Abstract Expressionist painter Willem de Kooning (732 pages), as well as another, more recent one about Francis Bacon (880 pages). Steven Naifeh penned the ultimate book on Jackson Pollock (934 pages), and Blake Gopnik recently wrote the life story of the Pop artist Andy Warhol (976 pages). The late art historian John Richardson has been celebrated for his...

There are different constellations in the Never Trump firmament and it’s unclear if they can unite As Joe Biden lurched from crisis to crisis with plummeting approval ratings, the Republican party seemed largely content to bury its internal differences and enjoy the show. But not for long. Earlier this month Alyssa Farah Griffin, once communications director for President Donald Trump, made clear that her loyalties have shifted to former vice-president Mike Pence and the Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell. “Put me squarely in the Pence/ McConnell camp,” Farah Griffin wrote on Twitter. “Certain denunciations must be unequivocal.” This drew a...

LACERVILLE, Calif. (AP) — A father and son charged with starting a massive California wildfire that destroyed many homes and forced tens of thousands of people to flee Lake Tahoe communities earlier this year pleaded not guilty in court Friday. The El Dorado County prosecutor's office charged David Scott Smith, 66, and Travis Shane Smith, 32, with reckless arson. The office also charged the son with illegal conversion or manufacture of a machine gun and both men of illegal possession of a firearm silencer. ...The criminal complaints do not specify how the machine gun and silencer tie into the Caldor...

Donald Trump has ratcheted up his “Obamagate” conspiracy theory to implicate Joe Biden and other former White House officials in what critics say is a desperate attempt to distract from the coronavirus pandemic. Ric Grenell, the acting director of national intelligence, on Wednesday sent Congress a list of high-ranking Obama administration members he alleged were involved in the “unmasking” of retired general Michael Flynn, in intelligence reports dating from the presidential transition.... Unmasking is a routine practice used to identify a person anonymously referred to in an intelligence document. It takes place hundreds of times a year, without controversy.

A politician who pushed for the introduction of “gender neutral” toilets shortly after his election has been charged with nine counts of sexual touching of a child. David Smith successfully petitioned the Mayor of Middlesborough to trial gender neutral toilets at Middlesbrough Council shortly after his election to the local authority in Teeside, Yorkshire, as a politician representing the Conservative Party, according to the BBC. Councillor Smith resigned from the notionally right-leaning party — described as “not really conservative” by Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage in a recent interview with Breitbart News — with “immediate effect in light of the...

In the year and a half since Donald Trump’s unexpected election to the presidency, a prevailing theory has emerged: It was “economic anxiety” that led disillusioned, working-class white voters to cast their ballots for the New York real-estate mogul. A recent study out of the University of Kansas suggests otherwise. Drawing from American National Elections Studies data, KU sociologist David Smith found that theory to be an inaccurate stereotype, albeit a “well-intentioned” one, that ignores the millions of white, working-class voters who he says voted against Trump because they opposed his attitudes toward minorities, Muslims, immigrants and women. “The election...

Agency watchdogs are up in arms over a Justice Department memo questioning the legality of turning documents they say are crucial to their investigations. The new policy protecting certain portions of sensitive documents — announced last month by the DOJ’s office of legal counsel — came under fresh fire from lawmakers during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing Wednesday. Lawmakers in both parties, including the top Republican and Democrat on the panel, disagree with the policy shift, saying it goes against the specific intent of the Inspector General Act of 1978. The law specifies that inspectors general have access to...

But for his willingness to use deadly force, Darren Wilson might be as dead today as his brother law enforcement officer, David Wilson, of the Johnson City, NY Police. William Jacobson of Legal Insurrection reminds us of the largely forgotten incident in which a peace officer died only a few months prior to the death of Michael Brown, strong arm robber, now being lionized by some as a hero and martyr. A reader from this area (Johnson City is about 45 minutes from Ithaca) forwarded me the link, writing: “I had forgotten about this event very close to home...

Whether Democrat or Republican, do you really want your private tax information leaked with impunity? On March 9, 2010, around 10 a.m., I announced my plans to run for senate representing Delaware. Later that same day, my office received a call from a reporter asking about my taxes. It’s since come out, after a halting and unenthusiastic investigation, that a Delaware Department of Revenue employee named David Smith accessed my records that day at approximately 2 p.m. — out of curiosity, he says. That these records ended up in the hands of the press is just a coincidence, the IRS...

A former BBC driver was found dead yesterday as he was due to stand trial for sex crimes uncovered as part of the Jimmy Savile inquiry. David Smith, 67, chauffeur to Savile and other celebrities during the 1980s is believed to have committed suicide on the eve of his court appearance. Police were called to Smith’s address after receiving a court summons at 1pm when he failed to appear for trial. A team of detectives discovered his body in his third-floor council flat in Lewisham, south-east London, shortly after breaking in at 2.20pm.

A liberal gay rights group said Wednesday that one of its employees, acting anonymously, had created the Web site that first published copies of unusually solicitous e-mail messages to teenagers from former Representative Mark Foley, which led to his resignation.

79R16773 KO-D By: Isett H.C.R. No. 192 CONCURRENT RESOLUTION WHEREAS, Founded in 1923, Texas Tech University has a rich heritage, and among its most cherished traditions are the Texas Tech Seal and the Double T symbol; and WHEREAS, Designed by the campus master planner, William Ward Watkin, in 1924, the Texas Tech Seal depicts a lamp, which represents school, a key for home, a book for church, and a star for the state; cotton bolls denote that industry's importance to the region, and the eagle represents this nation; and WHEREAS, The emblem first appeared on Tech diplomas in 1948,...

Bolled over by alums, Tech backs off on new seal BY ELLIOTT BLACKBURN AVALANCHE-JOURNAL The Texas Tech University System will return cotton's likeness to new designs of the school seal, an administrator said Thursday. Associate Vice Chancellor Lynn Denton, the system's head of marketing, said the school will develop new designs of the school seal that include symbols representing cotton. "We've decided that we are going to put cotton plants back into the seal," Denton said. Alumni became alarmed earlier this week after speculation circulated the Internet that the school was downplaying the Double T logo and removing cotton from...

Leading the way Sen. Duncan tops list of influential people in city BY DOUG HENSLEY AVALANCHE-JOURNAL One thing is clear when it comes to identifying influential people in Lubbock: A majority view state Sen. Robert Duncan as a person who is effective at getting things done, regardless of the size and scope of the task. "Bob has delivered," said Texas Tech Chancellor David Smith. "Not only does he have the personality to do what he does in state and local forums, he has led by example and delivered. "He has a great understanding of human anatomy. We have two ears...

Knight's outburst draws reprimand Raider fans throw support behind coach BY PATRICK GONZALES A-J SPORTS EDITOR Texas Tech head basketball coach Bob Knight was on the sidelines Tuesday night — a day after a highly publicized verbal spat with the university's chancellor threatened to put another dent in his coaching career. After a day of deliberation among school officials, Tech athletic director Gerald Myers said in a press release distributed Tuesday afternoon that appropriate personnel action had been taken in regard to Knight. No suspension was involved, Myers said, but the action did include a reprimand. Knight was greeted with...

Knight, Smith in public spat BY PATRICK GONZALES A-J SPORTS EDITOR A popular Lubbock lunch spot was the scene Monday of a verbal dust up between Texas Tech Chancellor David Smith and head basketball coach Bob Knight. Knight and Tech athletic director Gerald Myers did not return repeated telephone calls Monday seeking comment. Smith would say only that the university will have a comment at the appropriate time. ``I can't comment on it. It's a personnel matter,'' Smith said. An eyewitness to the incident gave the following account to The Avalanche-Journal: Smith was having lunch with another Tech employee at...

Texas Tech will return to a former policy of including race and ethnicity as a factor in ad missions after the Board of Regents approved the measure Friday. Race was a consideration before the 1996 Hopwood decision, which overturned affirmative action in Texas. The suit, named for lead plaintiff Cheryl Hopwood, was filed by four white students who were denied admission to the University of Texas School of Law. However, a June ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court allows universities to return to using race as one of multiple factors in the admissions process. "It allows the admissions policies to...