The smallest square tileable by pairwise incomparable integer rectangles

Abstract

Croft, Falconer and Guy ({Unsolved Problems in Geometry}, Problem~C5) exhibit a tiling of the $27\times 27$ square by eight pairwise incomparable integer rectangles and remark that it is not known whether $27$ is the smallest side length of a square that can be tiled by pairwise incomparable integer rectangles, no restriction being placed on the number of tiles. We show that it is: for every integer $n\le 26$ and every $k\ge 2$, the $n\times n$ square admits no tiling by $k$ pairwise incomparable integer rectangles. The proof combines two structural reductions with an exhaustive search over the $167538$ surviving candidate tile sets, carried out by two independently written programs. The complete software, build instructions and output logs are included as ancillary files.

17 pages, 2 figures. Ancillary files contain the complete verification software (two independent implementations), build instructions, and all output logs