Tiling a Pentacube at Scale 3 with 27 Different Pentacubes

A pentacube is a solid made of five cubes joined face to face. There are 29 pentacubes, distinguishing mirror images:

The six blue tiles have left- and right-handed forms. Kate Jones's systematic names are shown in green. The mirror forms of V1, S1–S2, and L1–L4 are called V2, N1–N2, and J1–J4. But L3 and J3 are identical because they have mirror symmetry through a plane diagonal.

A pentacube enlarged by a scale factor of 3 has the same volume as 27 pentacubes. Here I show a tiling of each pentacube at scale 3 by 27 different pentacubes. Tilings of mirror images of chiral pentacubes are not shown. They can be derived by reflection. For example, the tiling of pentacube J can be reflected to produce a tiling of pentacube J′.

This problem appears in the instruction booklet for Kadon Enterprises' Super Quintillions.

5A5B
5E5F
5G5H
5I5J
5K5L
5M5N
5P5Q
5R5S
5T5U
5V5W
5X5Y
5Z

Last revised 2026-04-15.


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Col. George Sicherman [ HOME | MAIL ]