Ribbon Weaver Men's Golf Shirt — Lichen

Five sets of parallel lines, one hidden tiling.

A never-repeating pattern: This pattern never settles into a repeating rhythm. Part of Fivefold, our family of never-repeating patterns built on the number five.

This pattern begins with five sets of parallel lines, each running in a different direction like five striped sheets over top of one another.

In 1981, Dutch mathematician Nicolaas de Bruijn showed how to turn this grid into a never-repeating tiling. Let the crossings act as instructions so that each one becomes a diamond. The diamonds can connect to cover the plane without gaps or a repeating pattern.

Sometimes the lines cross to make a pentagon surrounded by a ring, and at other places you'll see a star. All of this variety grows from the same five sets of straight lines, yet the pattern as a whole never repeats.

Never-repeating tilings are important puzzles in computation, too: no computer program can always tell whether a given set of tiles will cover an endless floor; a geometric version of the halting problem.

Even simple rules can result in extraordinary complexity: Some tiles can fit together to cover a floor forever, but only if the pattern never repeats. This pattern is one beautiful example.

Who it’s for

De Bruijn’s method is how physicists model quasicrystals: a slice through a higher-dimensional lattice, projected down. Made for physicists, chemists, materials scientists, crystallographers and designers.

For the office, campus, field days and weekends: smart enough for a meeting, easy enough for a Saturday.

The Men’s Golf Shirt

• 100% polyester jersey: breathable, moisture-wicking and wrinkle-resistant.
• Classic collar, three-button placket, reinforced seams.
• Printed on every panel: body, sleeves and collar.
• Wash cold by hand or machine, below 45 °C. No bleach, no tumble dry.
• Not quite the right fit? Tell us within 30 days and we’ll make it right.

Size guide

Measurements around the body, in cm (inches). For 4XL measurements, email us. Allow 1–3 cm either way.

Every Zenzicube design is grown from a real piece of mathematics. Find more in the Mathematical Menagerie.