Jennifer McLoud-Mann had almost come to believe that her last two years of work had been for naught.

"It had gotten to the point, where we hadn't found anything," she said. "And I was starting to believe I just don't know if we're going to find anything."

Armed with an algorithm, McLoud-Mann, along with her husband, Casey Mann, and David Von Derau — all of the University of Washington, Bothell — had been trying to help unravel one of math's long-standing unanswered questions.

How many shapes are able to "tile the plane" — meaning the shapes can fit together perfectly to cover any flat surface without overlapping or leaving any gaps. Mathematicians have proved that all triangles and quadrilaterals, or shapes with four sides, can tile the plane, and they have documented all of the convex hexagons that can do it ...Read More »