text:
Talk:Penrose tiling

No crystallographic restriction?
I find it odd that the whole article makes no mention of the significance of Penrose tiles as a quasi-counterexample of the crystallographic restriction, since they exhibit five-fold symmetry. Why is that? Was it deliberately decided to omit what looks like one of the most important facts about Penrose tiles, or am I confused about their nature? Swap (talk) 04:30, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

What is a Tiling?
What, then, is a "tiling"? Is there such a thing as "aperiodic tiling"? For that matter what is "the penrose tiling"?

Unfortunately, the terms, as used in this article, are thoroughly entrenched, even though they are not mathematically defined. (I've made several changes to this article, and the article on Aperiodic tiling to reflect this. Much more work is needed.)

A tiling is a covering of the plane by a set of tiles with non-overlapping interiors. A given set of tiles "admits" a tiling iff there is a tiling by congruent copies of tiles in the set. One can consider the collection of all tilings admitted by a given set of tiles.

(And here's the trouble-- everything in the paragraph above is often collectively referred to as "tiling"; The Penrose Tiling, approximately, seems to refer to a system consisting of the Penrose tiles (in one of their variations), and all of the tilings they produce)

A given "set of tiles" is aperiodic iff it admits only non-periodic tilings. So aperiodicity, formally, is a property of a set of tiles, not a tiling. This is an important distinction--- mere non-periodicity, a property of tilings, is not so special.

I guess one could mathematically define tiling and Tiling, but as tempting as that might be, I don't think there is any precedent for that kind of nonsense. The fact is, we have a well established, but inadequate, informal term, and a less-known, but more precise mathematical term.

In casual conversation, to be frank, I'm as likely as the next guy to refer to The Penrose Tiling; but it is not a completely meaningful term in itself. This is subtle, but essential. — C. Goodman-Strauss

 * If 'aperiodic tiling' is a misnomer then we cannot have the genus-species explanation, i.e. tiling>aperiodic tiling>Penrose tiling.
 * This suggests to discuss a renaming of the aperiodic tiling page.
 * For mathematicians, apparently, sets of tiles come before tilings, so finite precedes infinite. But there is the awkward point about the (aperiodic) sets of tiles which do not admit a tiling - why call such shapes 'tiles'?al 12:01, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

 * The genus-species definition is possible as
 * tiling>nonperiodic tiling>Penrose tiling
 * which avoids the term 'aperiodic tiling' and also the quaint wording that presents a tiling as set of tiles. 195.96.229.83 —Preceding comment was added at 12:04, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

L-systems
Several images were not Penrose tilings, but were outputs from L-systems. I've moved them to L-system. Now someone needs to explain in that article what those images actually are, and how the L-system generated them.

 * Now I too wonder how the L-system generates the tilings. I have one guess: it might use deflation. Is this correct? —Sverdrup(talk) 15:31, 27 Dec 2003 (UTC)

A free Microsft Windows program to generate and explore rhombic Penrose tiling is available at http://www.stephencollins.net/penrose. The software was written by Stephen Collins of Splendid Software, in collaboration with the Universities of York, UK and Tsuka, Japan.

LSystems can be generated using the free Software http://jlsystem.sourceforge.net. helohe 12:10, 1 October 2005 (UTC)

Clark Richert
Yeah, I know that a reference to a random guy posting at Slashdot is exactly what Wikipedia needs. :) But his post mentions tome interesting things about the tiles, including that Clark Richert has figured at least a part of that at the same time as Penrose. Paranoid 15:05, 12 May 2005 (UTC)

 * A very important distinction is that Richert does not claim he had invented the matching rules; as I understand it, he only is claiming to have discovered the pattern they force. This is the crux of the matter: the Penrose tiles are interesting because they can only form this particular non-periodic structure. Of course, Kimberly-Clark was only printing the pattern on it's tissues, not making any infringement, I think, on the matching rules and tiles themselves. --69.152.216.28 18:53, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Projection
Note that the Penrose tiling is a projection of a five dimensional lattice (which has cubic symmetry) down to two dimensions; thus, the readily apparent symmetry in five dimensions is rather hidden and obfuscated when seen in two.

 * I heard that it is not a projection of the entire five dimensional lattice, but just of the part of the lattice within a slab between two parallel four-dimensional flats. Is that right? JRSpriggs 07:19, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

No Matching Rules Discussed
There is a serious-- indeed critical!-- flaw in this article. The rhombs shown CAN tile periodically. (indeed, of course, any quadrilateral can). The essential aspect of the Penrose tiles is that they are marked in such a way that they can ONLY tile non-periodically. With no discussion or illustration of the matching rules that drive the construction, unfortunately, the article is nonsense.

(The illustrations do show the structure the Penrose tiles are forced to assume, but not the actual tiles themselves)

Here is a reference, chosen by Google: www2.spsu.edu/math/tile/aperiodic/penrose/penrose2.htm -- —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.151.118.199 (talk)

 * The article currently reads (after describing the shapes):
 * "The tiles are put together with one rule: no two tiles can be touching so as to form a single parallelogram. The tiles can be modified with bumps and dents around the perimeter to enforce this rule, but the tiling looks better if they have smooth sides."
 * Perhaps this should be more emphasized to avoid confusion by other future readers. --C S (Talk) 03:26, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

 * That rule is erroneous. The actual matching rule can be made by placing an arrow on each side of each rhomb, using two colors as in the diagram.  The directions of the arrows can be assigned by choosing a direction for one edge in the diagram and propagating it.  The rule is that when two rhombs are placed together, the arrows and colors must match.  This seems to boil down to the above rule plus the color constraint when placing two identical rhombs together, but the actual rule also constrains putting different rhombs together. –Dan Hoey 02:28, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Thank you; I did overlook this. But of course I wouldn't have been the only one. And the standard stripes that are often drawn on the rhombs are quite attractive!

 * True. This needs to be covered in the article, preferably with a picture. Reyk  YO!  22:08, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

 * Is there any reference or better description for that strange rule
 * "The tiles are put together with one rule: no two tiles can be touching so as to form a single parallelogram. The tiles can be modified with bumps and dents around the perimeter to enforce this rule, but the tiling looks better if they have smooth sides."
 * ? While the second (well-known) method implies the first, the converse does not hold, i.e. the "one rule" is not sufficient to guarantee non-periodicity: One big rhomb and two small ones can be put together to form a hexagon and these tile the plane periodically and obeying that rule (smeone produced some piece ASCII art of this on the talk page of the german article).--Hagman-de 08:58, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

 * [[Image:PenroseBogus.GIF|thumb|200px|Periodic tiling showing that the parallelogram rule is insufficient]] Here is an example of the parallelogram-free hexagon tiling. –Dan Hoeytalk 23:04, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

 * [[Image:Penrose-tiles-bump-and-color-coded.svg|thumb|200px|bump-and-color-coding for rhombs]] I see that Commons:User:Hagman has put up an image of a real set of matching rules. I prefer these rules to the arrow rules by User_talk:Ael 2. Actually, it would look even better without the bumps. Getting the colored arcs into a larger picture for the beginning of the article would require more work, unless we can find something in one of the other wikipedia articles--both the French and German versions seem to have better content than this one. –Dan Hoeytalk 23:42, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Proposal for matching rules
I made a christmas and new-year card for my friends using penrose tilings. The program that I wrote for this card can also easily generate other figures, and I believe they are usefull for explaining the matching rules. I have split up the section "Drawing the penrose tiling" two subsections: "L-Systems" and "Deflation". Under the section "Deflation" I have put some figures and explanations about how to generate a penrose tiling based on the matching rule, using of the deflation principle. It is certainly instructive to have some extra words about these matching rules in the introduction. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Tovrstra (talk • contribs) 14:35, 30 December 2006 (UTC).

Explanation?
How about a section explaining why the tiling is aperiodic, how it works, and why this is interesting? Torokun 22:05, 28 March 2006 (UTC) And also, why insist (as many others do) that ' given a bounded region of the pattern, no matter how large, that region will be repeated an infinite number of times within the tiling' which is a feature of random systems? 85.187.217.182 23:17, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

More penrose tiles needed?
See The colossal book of mathematics, Gardner M., Penrose tiles. The tiles featured there are more interesting and should be added.Doomed Rasher 18:19, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

Link to a Penrose-base artistic image
Ref: Kepler/Penrose tiling problem...i am an independent artist/designer and about 20 yrs ago i painted a picture depicting a periodic pattern using the Kepler/Penrose tiles (derived from the dissection of a pentagon)...and this image can be perused on my web-site at:
 * http://www.peterhugomcclure.com/colour%20images/36.htm

Best regards pete mcclure.--81.86.8.62 13:00, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

 * Hi Pete. Are you willing to allow use of the image directly on the wikipedia? There's a choice of copyright tags to go with an image here; see WP:TAG.--Niels Ø 09:08, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

 * Jos Leys has also made some imagery using Penrose Tiles. Jos Leys's website is here, while the Penrose specific images can be perused here.  Still, I think these images should only considered if they can add something to the article.  Or maybe in a section on the use of Penrose Tiles by artists.  Scribblesinmindscapes 17:04, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

 * I think you misunderstand the significance of Pete's work. He has created a periodic Penrose tiling having translational symmetry in both dimensions (wich I verified in a paint program). This contradicts a statement in the article that the "parallelogram rule" results in an aperiodic tiling. =Axlq 19:21, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

 * Aaah, okay, I initially just took Pete's comment as artistic, as being indicative of an artistic work inspired by Penrose Tiling. The tiling in his picture is not the Penrose tiling.  It has translational symmetry and it uses the constituents of a Penrose tiling to form a tiling with translational symmetry - but the real Penrose tiling must use the constituent tiles in a certain manner as discussed in the wikipedia article.  Penrose's original paper also starts by saying: "'kites' and 'darts', which, when matched according to certain simple rules, could tile the entire plane, but only in a non-periodic way".  Penrose's article can be found here (and should perhaps be included as an external link):   Pete's work does not agree with the pictures in the wikipedia article and I can therefore only assume that it doesn't match the tiles correctly.  I think the usage of the words Penrose Tiles for the constituents  are a bit misleading as indicated they need to be tiled in a certain way to be aperiodic.  I'm not a researcher in the field of aperiodic tilings or quasicrystals so disagreement welcomed.  Scribblesinmindscapes 09:24, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

 * Pete's work falls under the section of this article titled "Rhombus tiling" – not kites and darts – and follows the rhombus tiling rule exactly.
 * I just confirmed that the picture now shown in that section also has translational symmetry in both dimensions — the region outline itself is tile-able. There is a disconnect between the text in that section and the picture; now that I know the picture has translational symmetry, the text now seems flawed or unclear. =Axlq 19:23, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Kite or Kile?
Most (all?) of the times that the word appears in the text, it's 'kite.' However, the word appears in some images (and the name of the images) as 'kile.'  I expect that 'kite' is correct, though I have no idea. It'd be a good thing for someone knowledgeable in Penrose tiling to make consistent.

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Stomv (talk • contribs) 12:45, 23 February 2007 (UTC).

 * Probably some typing error; never heard about 'kile', definitely.al 20:39, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

 * "Kile" in norwegian means a wedge (or to tickle) Cuddlyable3 07:57, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

More external links
Some more external links which I thought was quite good concerning Penrose Tiles (see below). I'm adding this here so that someone more familiar with the topic can review it and see if it might be useful re the article.

American Mathematical Society article:

Clay Mathematics Institute article:

Scribblesinmindscapes 16:40, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

 * Another Penrose Tiles article at AMS:
 * Scribblesinmindscapes 18:48, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Media Hype
Rewrote the passage about the Steinhardt & Lu paper and trimmed irrelevant links. The idea is not really new, but the name of Steinhardt, an acknowledged expert, gives it now more weight. Artisanal practices suggest examples, but do not produce mathematical objects; an ellipse does not prove that its daughtsman had a theory of conic sections.195.96.229.83 13:28, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

 * I think that this paper is important, not just for the link to Islamic architecture, but because it gives tiles which allow you to achieve 10-fold rotational symmetry rather than the mere 5-fold symmetry achievable with the Penrose's own tilings. In both cases there is also an additional reflectional symmetry. So the pattern can be generated by reflections of an 18 degree (for Lu's scheme) or 36 degree (for Penrose's scheme) section between two mirrors. JRSpriggs 07:19, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

 * If you believe that tenfold symmetry is somehow superior to fivefold perhaps you should appreciate the pinwheel tiling which has symmetry of infinite order. The Radin paper [1] explains that the Penrose tiling has indeed a tenfold statistical symmetry  but the  local is just fivefold (added this just the other day and meant to clean up references and notes).

A place for links to art could be the end section ('Triva') which we should perhaps rename. I agree that Jos Leys' site mentioned somewhere above should not be missed. 195.96.229.83

 * I am not talking about some kind of average or statistical symmetry. I am talking about a perfect rotational symmetry around a single point. JRSpriggs 10:39, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

 * A nice symmetry around a central point can be easily achieved by arranging mirror pairs of identical pie-slices from an aperiodic tiling. Their angle should be pi/n. A more elegant solution would be to find an aperiodic decomposition of a triangle and to arrange (pairs of) triangles to form a vertex. Tubingen triangles, Robinson triangles and the pinwheel substitution illustrate this idea.
 * The main interst in an aperiodic tiling is a lack of symmetry: aperiodic means lacking translational symmetry. The surprise is that only with an aperiodic tiling you can achieve otherwise 'forbidden' symmetries.
 * Roger Penrose was searching to decrease the number of tiles needed for an aperidic tiling and he arrived at two. The medieval islamic decorators needed some more.
 * And their interest was to obtain a complicated and elegant  motif.  In the Mediterranean world  interlaced motifs are believed to be  a charm against the evil eye, which is apparently one of the sources for interest in them. One might speculate that aperiodic tilings have  a particular effect on the perceptive apparatus which could explain their psychological appeal.195.96.229.83

 * Peter J. Lu has combined inflation rules for two tiles defined by the Islamic architects with one inflation rule of his own devising and gotten a set of rules for three tiles (all used by the architects along with two other tiles) which can tile the plane with perfect ten-fold rotational symmetry. In my opinion, this is an improvement on the five-fold symmetry of the Penrose tiling. I hope to get a link to a file with all three of Lu's tiles. JRSpriggs 09:26, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Removed ref to Islamic art from lead as it is out of place and incorrect: see above and also reactions to the Steinhardt-Lou paper. One can say that something equivalent to a Penrose tiling might have been obtained as it is done later in the article.195.96.229.104 (talk) 09:35, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Substitution Matrix
The word "Substitution Matrix" is used without reference and introduction. Is it related to the substitutions used to build a penrose tiling and if so, how is it defined? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 80.202.238.117 (talk) 20:24, 6 March 2007 (UTC).

Substitutions are transforms which for simple 'linear' cases are represented a matrix, hence the name. The usual notation is New=Matrix.Old, e.g for the penrose tiling: $$ \begin{bmatrix} T \\ t \end{bmatrix} = \begin{bmatrix} 2 & 1 \\ 1 & 1 \end{bmatrix} \begin{bmatrix} T \\ t \end{bmatrix}$$

If the eigenvalues of the substitution matrix are pisot numbers the substitution generates a quasicrystal and the physicists say that it produces Bragg diffraction.91.92.179.156 23:36, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

use of the word "uncountable"
the article says "there are many ways (infact, uncountably many).." This is kinda vague and might lead someone to think uncountable is a synonym of infinite. In fact, countability/uncountability really has nothing to do with the size of a set. It should definitely be mentioned that the ways to form a penrose tiling is uncountable, but it should not be confused with an implication about the size of the set. 164.76.162.135 16:56, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

i just decided to go for it and made this change myself 164.76.162.135 17:05, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Uncountable/countable are characteristics of the two basic infinite sets and the first is more 'powerful' than the second. This funny talk tries to avoid the paradoxes and confusions when dealing with the infinite. The assertion that there are uncountable ways to arrange a Penrose tiling sounds plausible as different tilings within the same perimeter are possible.
 * There is however a serious problem here: if the Penrose tiling is in fact an infinite set of variants, what is the meaning of the definite article?  'The' Penrose tiling is the one that Roger Penrose first proposed, but how to define the rest? In the recent hype an attempt to escape from this ambiguity has been made by speaking about the quasicrystalline Penrose tiling. 'Perfect' would have been a better choice of adjective as the variants are seen to be produced by local 'defects' and thus considered to be 'imperfect'. I suspect that the second illustration in the article has been the cause for the unfortunate word choice but it replaced an older picture of something that was not a Penrose tiling.91.92.179.156 21:08, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

 * The word uncountable has a special meaning in Mathematics; have a look at the article about the countable set. In short, something can be finite or it can be infinite.  The latter can be distinguished into countably infinite and uncountably infinite.  In my opinion, you can find a bijection to the set of the natural numbers, so the set of Penrose tilings is countably infinite.  This bijection is an algorithm (not really, because it does not terminate, but otherwise it is) creating all possible penrose tilings in an infinite number of steps.  It starts with a single tile.  Then it enters an endless loop (could be implemented using a width-search) in which it branches a finite number of times to place a neighbouring tile to all possible positions on the current tiling.  This way each given possible tiling is generated in a specific amount of steps.  This is a bijection to the set of the natural numbers (the numbers of steps are members of this set), so we have the necessary bijection.  qed.  So it should be countably infinite.  Alfe 07:38, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

 * The article says "It is easy to check that some of the compact patches consisting of three tiles admit two different arrangements within the same perimeter and thus variations are possible.". If that is true and there are a countably infinite number of such patches (as there must be), then the number of variations which can be achieved this way is uncountable in the technical mathematical sense used in set theory. JRSpriggs 11:10, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

 * That's not a proof, though. The proof of uncountability that I know of is by deflation. It's easier to prove that there are uncountable choices of a single tile in a tiling; since each tiling only has countably many tiles, it amounts to the same thing. To choose a single tile in a tiling, first choose whether it is a kite or a dart, second choose what kind of patch this tile is part of at the second level of deflation, etc. Thus one can specify the whole tiling by an infinite sequence of finite choices of this type. The number of sequences of choices that can be made is the number of the continuum. —David Eppstein 16:05, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

 * Yes, David. My argument was for the rhombus tilings. Yours works for the kite and dart tilings (and would work also for the rhombus tiles with a different choice of words). What would you like me to clarify or justify to make my proof complete in your eyes? JRSpriggs 09:54, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

 * The algorithm I presented above produces a countably infinite number of finite tilings. So it proves that the number of finite tilings is countably infinite.  It seems to be of more importance, though, what the number of tilings is which fill the whole infinite plane.  That number may likely be uncountably infinite.  The text could point out that difference more clearly.  Alfe 01:47, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

 * Sorry, Alfe, you're mistaken. You said you branch a finite number of times, but that only tiles a finite part of the plane.  If you want to tile the entire plane, then you have to branch infinitely many times, and that makes the number of tilings uncountable.  If we take them modulo rotations and translations (placing a vertex at the origin and including a horizontal edge) that's still uncountable.  So there are uncountably many different tilings of the plane, but you only can tell if you look at the whole plane.  If you look at a finite patch, all the tilings agree (and each agrees in a set translation that is not only infinite, but has positive density.)  Only two of the tilings (up to symmetry) have a fivefold center of symmetry. –Dan Hoeytalk 14:59, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Multiple tilings and rotational symmetry
There are certainly finitely many connected tilings given any finite number N of tiles, but there are uncountably many tilings of the plane, using the deflation argument. However, it is important to note that only two of the tilings possess five-fold rotational symmetry. This renders most of the statements about five-fold symmetry false. It should be mentioned that these two, and uncountably many others, also possess mirror symmetry; only the two rotationally-symmetric ones possess mirror symmetry through more than one line. The distinction between finite and infinite tilings is crucial here, since a finite subtiling cannot be used to determine which infinite tiling you are in, nor even where you are in that infinite tiling.

Statements about a "rule" that no two rhombs can form a parallelogram are also incorrect, as noted above. The true rule can be seen in the diagram; color the edges of the rhombs as in that diagram, and only allow matching-colored edges to be adjacent.

There doesn't seem to be a rating for an article that has quite a bit of good stuff and some glaring falsehoods. –Dan Hoey 02:28, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

 * I removed the statement of the bogus rule about two rhombs being forbidden to form a parallelogram. I also removed the statement It is easy to check that some of the compact patches consisting of three tiles admit two different arrangements within the same perimeter and thus variations are possible which I believe to be incorrect (not in that it is not "easy", but in that it is "impossible").  Perhaps it was referring to the bogus rule, which permits reorientation of the convex hexagon formed of two thin and one thick rhomb.  That cannot be made with correct matching rules.

 * I'm about ready to dike out the discussion of image:VarPenrT.jpg since it does not seem to be relevant to Penrose tilings. I don't know what it means to say it is "not a quasicrystal"  Does it represent an aperiodic tiling rule or not?

 * The statement that there are 23 ways that these rhombs can meet at a vertex is apparently wrong; I don't know how it was determined. I count 49 ways; as multiples of 36 degrees, these are 1111111111, 111111112, 11111113, 11111122, 1111114, 11111212, 1111123, 11112112, 1111213, 111124, 111133, 111121112, 1111213, 111124, 111133, 11121112, 1112113, 1112122, 111214, 111223, 111313, 11134, 1121122, 112114, 1121212, 112123, 112213, 112222, 11224, 11233, 11242, 113113, 11314, 11323, 1144, 121222, 121213, 12124, 12133, 122122, 12214, 12223, 12313, 1234, 1324, 1333, 1414, 22222, 2224, 2233, 2323, 244, and 334.  This was done by hand and may not be entirely complete, so I changed the wording to "over twenty".
 * Indeed, there are 54 ways: My list omitted 1111222, 111232, 112132, 12232, and 1243. Of course, to write "54" would be OR.  Perhaps the OEIS has a sequence for "necklaces from {1,2,3,4} summing to n".  Or I could send them that sequence, if find the time to compute it (and its relatives) properly.  Or is there a combinatorial objects server that would cough up the answer in a citable way?–Dan Hoeytalk 15:38, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

 * The statement did not originally say 23 ways (which is vague), it said 23 combinations (which is specific). I believe your 54 figure refers to permutations. For example you count 11233, 11323, 12133, 12313 separately, these are all permutations of the 11233 combination. I wouldn't mind if the article says "there are X combinations" or "there are Y permutations", but it should be precise; "there are at least Z ways" is vague in two ways - the use of the phrase "at least", and the use of the term "way".  There are, as far as I know, 23 combinations of vertex. Until you can precisely say how many permutations there are, we should stick with this statement.

For completeness the 23 combinations are: 1111111111, 111111112, 11111113, 11111122, 1111114, 1111123, 1111222, 111124, 111133, 111223, 11134, 112222, 11224, 11233, 1144, 12223, 1234, 1333, 22222, 2224, 2233, 244, 334. Chris 10:53, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

 * "Combinations" may be ordered or not, so it is nearly as ambiguous as "way"; "permutations" usually refers to bijections between sets of distinct objects, so is incongruous here. I claim that cyclically ordered combinations of rhombus angles are the appropriate statistic, because the rules of the tiling are based on tiles that share an edge, not a vertex.  Thus 11233, 11323, 12133, 12313 are distinguished by rules that specify whether or not a "2" angle may abut a "1" or "3" and whether a "1" may abut "3"s on both sides. So counting the number of cyclically ordered combinations,
 * the unordered angle multiset 111223 appears in six distinct cyclically ordered combinations (namely 111223, 111232, 112123, 112213, 112312, and 121213),
 * the multisets 11111122, 1111222, 11224, and 11233 appear in four ordered combinations each,
 * the multisets 1111123, 111124, 111133, 112222, and 1234 appear in three ordered combinations each, and
 * the multisets 11134, 1144, 12223, and 2233 appear in two ordered combinations each.
 * Thus your count of 23 is short by 5 + 4×3 + 5×2 + 4×1 = 31, and the total of ordered combinations is 54.

 * I appreciate that you have now clarified your language on the article, but I dispute your contention that "combinations" may be ordered or not: in combinatorial mathematics combination refers to an unordered collection of elements, whereas permutation refers to distinguishable sequences.  If you dispute this, you'd better sort out the pages for these terms.  Taking this definition of combination, my count of 23 combinations is spot on. My original point was that when the article said there were over 20 ways to add up to 360 degrees at the vertex, this was unnecessarily vague.  The current wording is better, although I'd still prefer the word permutation since it has more specific meaning in this context (as long as you are sure there are 54 permutations - do you have a citation? - you shouldn't really be working the combinations/permutations out yourself since that would constitute original research). Chris 15:44, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

 * I am still concerned that there is no citable reference for either of these numbers, nor for the number of vertices of these types that appear in a Penrose tiling.–Dan Hoeytalk 14:37, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Agreed - I've seen both numbers used in text books before, but unfortunately can't remember them: doesn't really count as a proper citation does it?Chris 15:44, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
 * The vague wording '23 combination' being replaced by '54 cyclically ordered', what about the 7 allowed combinations? Are they ordered? In fact some people prefer to say 8 as they count two types of 5-stars due to the matching rules.

If counting is OR and unacceptable, I guess that here at least two citations are needed.al 21:36, 28 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Also, the statement that the frequencies of the two rhombs are equal is incorrect: there are more thick rhombs than thin ones, in the golden ratio. –Dan Hoeytalk 14:43, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

 * I figured out that what was meant was that the frequency of each orientation of a rhomb is equal, so I clarified that. This whole discussion should be moved to a section that treats both rhombus tiles and kite and dart tiles together, since much of  its content is applicable to both.–Dan Hoeytalk 14:58, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

The Pentagonal Penrose Tiling
Perhaps something should be said about the earlier steps, when Penrose proposed a 'Keplerian' tilings built with more than two tiles. Apparently the original Penrose tiling was built with pentagons, rhombuses, stars and boats (3/5 of a star). The derivation can be seen on Savard's page. Here is a good introduction which  includes all of this and  could be linked somewhere. In professional jargon the Penrose tiling(s) are just P1, P2 and P3, which correspond to the pentagonal, kite and dart and rhombus variants. al 22:22, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

Importance
Just added a section about the Decagonal covering which seems important in physics. Removed the high-rating tag on this page as I believe that the Penrose tiling is mathematically trivial and pertains more to recreational maths. If people believe that tenfold symmetry is somehow important, here is perhaps an important link .al 17:49, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

 * Please don't remove the rating template. If you feel that "High" is the wrong importance, that can be changed, but changing it is very different from ripping out the whole rating block. As for mathematical triviality, I disagree but more importantly I think that mathematical depth is far from the only thing determining importance. —David Eppstein 20:57, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

 * Sorry for the tag; please explain why the importance is high.Imho it is very low, the Penrose tiling being just an example.I believe that the quality is also low and a lot of rewriting has to be done (Be bold).al 18:32, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

 * My feeling is that in terms of mathematical depth the importance of Penrose tilings should be mid, not low. The concept of a periodic tiling itself is nontrivial, as is the construction of Penrose tilings by inflation and deflation, as is the relation to duals of pentagrids, as is the connection to sections of higher dimensional lattices. However, since Penrose tilings are so well known popularly, and have some relation to physical quasicrystals as well, I think it's enough to boost the importance to high. As a similar example, I've been editing regular number recently; in terms of mathematical content it is much more trivial (merely the numbers which have only 2, 3, or 5 in their prime factorization) so in mathematical depth I would rate it as low, but again it is a concept with several important applications outside of mathematics, due to which I boosted the rating to mid. —David Eppstein 18:51, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

 * There is no doubt that the PT is the paradigmatic case, but it is just an instance of an aperiodic tiling. Everything that is known about  the PT, has been found to be valid mutatis mutandis for the Ammann-Beenker tiling. As I see it, aperiodic to periodic  is just as rational to irrational. The binary Fibonacci word can be inflated, deflated and projected and it offers a more obvious access to understanding the properties of the PT, which is more or less its generalization. Socolar's multigrid approach is perhaps 'deep', but it is also a much more general topic than PT. Briefly: popular is not the same as important. Shall we lower the rating with one or two notches? al 17:03, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Let's try a different tack. My feeling of the importance rating is, again, not so much importance within mathematics, but importance as a contribution to an encyclopedia. How embarrassed should we be if this topic were missing? Not embarrassed at all, it's so trivial as to be unimportant, and there is room for legitimate debate about whether it even meets WP's standards of notability: low importance. The article makes a solid positive contribution to the encyclopedia's overall depth, is on a clearly notable topic, has some applications and connections to other topics, but could be removed without causing us significant embarrassment: mid importance. The topic is notable enough that any encyclopedia worthy of the name should carry it, and it would be a clear embarrassment to us not to carry it: high importance. The topic is central to human knowledge and any educated person should be embarrassed not to know a little about what it is: top importance. That's my own calibration, anyway, and I think it's more conservative than the calibration described at WikiProject_Mathematics/Wikipedia_1.0. Now, where does Penrose tiling fit on this scale? I think mid or high are both defensible choices, but I'd pick high because I'd be embarrassed to be working on an encyclopedia that doesn't carry an article on a mathematical topic that is so well known in popular culture. —David Eppstein 18:33, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

 * I would go for mid importance for this article, but I'd accept high. Low is really for the very obscure stuff, see Category:Low-importance mathematics articles (although there are a few there which I think deserve mid). I do think this is mathematically important as it opened up a new area of investigation, it what was beleived to be a closed book. It further prompted investigation into real world crystals which had five-fold symmetry where none were thought to exist. Hence is has implication outside of mathematics, which is one reason for for an increased rating. --Salix alba (talk) 22:00, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

OK, I see I got it wrong, but I was mislead by the Physics project which explicitely says to rate importance 'within physics'. The Maths project, being tied with the W_1.0, suggests the oposite. Sorry for the trouble.al 18:00, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Alain Connes considers the space of Penrose tilings a "very interesting `noncommutative' space" and makes it a main example in his book, Noncommutative geometry. So I think calling the topic "mathematically trivial" is a rather narrow viewpoint and one that would presumably change with more experience and knowledge. --C S (Talk) 22:39, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Early history
I think that the content of 'Early history' paragraph did not match its title and I have modified it. Penrose's name is still buried among technical details but I have tried to connect it with a larger context (not just mathematics). Perhaps Dürer and girih tiles should also be moved here. The discarded ending could be moved to Wang tiles. 91.92.179.156 09:33, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

Surprising
The opening section states "* any finite region in a tiling appears infinitely many times in that tiling and, in fact, in any other tiling. This property would be expected if the tilings had translational symmetry so it is not a surprising fact given their lack of translational symmetry." Why does the fact that it is expected given translational symmetry (isn't that a tautology anyway?) mean that it isn't surprising given no translational symmetry. I believe the statement due to the largeness of infinite tilings, but I don't see the link to the statement made. -- SGBailey (talk) 22:48, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

Is there a better L-System rule set?
As can be seen by this SVG file with ECMAScript animation of a Penrose tiling using an L-System (essentially following the given axiom/rules in this article), this particular rule set covers many rhombus edges MUCH more then twice.

This leads to MANY edges overlapping each other, especially near the center.

Also some of the pathes are closed (and then can be filled with a color), but others are open and can't be filled.

Does anybody know of a better rule set, only producing closed pathes for the neccessary rhombuses?

Every single rule in the given set forms essentially a narrow or a wide rhombus (2 of them each, the narrow ones have an additional entry/exit line, which can't be removed without breaking the over all tiling. I can provide an SVG file demonstrating the single rules on request).

Would a better rule set even be possible?

Deerwood (talk) 06:20, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Contradiction between Penrose and Aperiodic articles?
The introduction here says that Penrose tilings are not correctly described as aperiodic tilings. Yet the introduction of Aperiodic tiling article says "the various Penrose tiles are best known examples of an aperiodic set of tiles" and "the Penrose tiles are an aperiodic set of tiles." Unless I'm missing some subtle semantics, this is confusing to a reader. --Ds13 (talk) 07:48, 11 July 2008 (UTC)
 * I noticed that contradiction as well, and you seem to be correct. Under the citation I just added, which distinguishes between aperiodic and nonperiodic tiling, the Penrose tiling is indeed aperiodic, since it is not also possible to construct a periodic tiling from Penrose tiles. I've updated the article accordingly. --ArthurDenture (talk) 05:05, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Removed muddled legal section
I removed the following from the article, as it has multiple errors of sourcing and fact. Since someone reverted the removal with claim that it is "notable" I am taking the time to explain in more detail. The content was so screwed up it was dangerously misleading and could not stay. Perhaps with some work it can be reworded to be accurate and adequately sourced.

 * Pentaplex Ltd., a company in Yorkshire, England controlled by Penrose, owns the licensing rights to Penrose tilings.

This sentence is severely flawed. First up, ownership of intellectual property is always contentious issue, and Wikipedia itself should not take sides on claims of ownership. If Pentaplex asserts ownership to some sort of legally enforceable intellectual property, then we need to be specific in what they claim to own and in what jurisdictions. The ref that was provided here says they have a US patent -- but it also says it's expired. Thus the only reliable source provided shows no ownership rights at all, and only former potential rights (patents can be disputed, ownership comes after it's been tested and prevailed in court), and only in the United States... which is a problem, as Pentaplex is in the UK. If they assert any ownership then it must be something other than this patent. We need a reliable source about their claims if we are going to list these claims... and then they are only claims, not findings of law.

 * Penrose and Pentaplex filed a lawsuit against Kimberly-Clark for breach of copyright.

Is there a reliable source about the lawsuit and what exactly the grounds were? It sounds dubious to me, as copyrights are only for fixed forms, not theoretical constructs like tilings.

 * Kimberly-Clark had allegedly embossed Penrose tilings on Kleenex quilted toilet paper in the UK.

This is probably the least bothersome sentence. It could use a real source, but it's not exactly confusing or misleading.

 * SCA Hygiene Products later came to control Kleenex products and reached an agreement with Penrose and Pentaplex on the Penrose tiling issue.

In which case no ownership rights were legally established, just that a settlement of some sort was made. And a source would be needed here

 * SCA is not involved in the copyright dispute.

OK... the ref cited here doesn't seem to meet Wikipedia standards either. It comes from a law dept. at a genuine school, but it's not a publshed source and appears to be just a handout to students or something. On top of that, claims of a single law professor in an informal way is not a reliable, primary source on a law case. There must be real sources, and ones that can better sort out what really happened. Until that happens the section is extremely misleading (so an expired US patent gives a UK copyright on something most courts say can't be copyrighted at all??) and can't be in the article. DreamGuy (talk) 14:57, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

 * Google news archive search provides a number of sources. The Time Magazine one supports precisely the second sentence quoted: that Penrose and Pentaplex sued Kimberly-Clark for copyright infringement. And I don't see how a handout in an intellectual property law class at a law school fails WP:RS: it is a self-published sources, but falls into the "established expert" clause of that part of the verifiability policy. Your interpretation about whether using copyright law in such cases could be an "error" is not grounds for removing this sourced material from the article. David Eppstein (talk) 15:16, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

 * Part of why this case might be tricky to find is it may have been settled out of court, if indeed ever filed. If someone is interested in learning more, here's some citations which might help you.  brain (talk) 23:48, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Mirsky, S. "The Emperor's New Toilet Paper." Sci. Amer. 277, 24, July 1997.
 * Science Magazine, 25 April 1997

"Citation needed"?
I'm unsure of the protocol, so rather than make the (trivial) edit I'm putting this on the Talk page. My concern relates to the usage of "citation needed" tags, and it's bothered me in many articles... perhaps someone can set me straight on this one, so I'll know how to deal with it elsewhere? In this article I'm unsure about the state of the following sentence:

 * "Robert Ammann independently discovered the tiling at approximately the same time as Penrose.[citation needed]"

Given that Ammann's name is a link, and that following that link leads you to a Wikipedia article that addresses the statement in some detail and cites some sources of its own (which, unfortunately, don't include links to web-accessible information), is the "citation needed" tag truly needed here? It seems to me there are a few possibilities:

 * Cite the same sources as Ammann's Wikipedia page. This seems a bit pedantic.
 * Cite Ammann's Wikipedia page itself. This seems redundant, since that link is already in the sentence.
 * Find newer and more useful citation sources, and update the article, Ammann's article, or both. While this would solidify things a bit, it also just adds a layer of abstraction to the question: the placement and propagation of the citations would still need to be determined.
 * Remove the "citation needed" tag. Assume that the link at the beginning of the sentence is a sufficient guide for interested readers.

I lean toward the final option, but I don't know if my inclinations are at odds with the customs here. Would somebodt please help a brother out and chime in on this issue? Thanks. 76.105.238.158 (talk) 15:28, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

 * Removing the tag seems OK to me. The obvious problem is that the person who originally put it there may, without reading this discussion, put it back. Nevertheless I should try removing the tag, and, if it comes back, copying the references from the other article to here. JamesBWatson (talk) 15:41, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

 * Thanks for your input. I just removed the one instance mentioned above, and will observe how things play out in the future.  76.105.238.158 (talk) 02:00, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Refs 04:13, 21 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Yes, that does look better. Thank you. XOR'easter (talk) 15:42, 21 January 2020 (UTC)
 * I agree it has periodic patches in wedges, but the pattern as a whole never repeats. Thus it lacks translational symmetry yet has reflection symmetry and rotational symmetry. Isn't that the definition of a Penrose Tiling as given in this article? --Skintigh (talk) 21:21, 10 December 2021 (UTC)
 * No. That is neither the definition of a Penrose tiling (which is a specific aperiodic tiling, different from this tiling and from other aperiodic tilings) nor the definition of an aperiodic tiling (which requires that it does not contain arbitrarily-large periodic patches, or sometimes more strongly that the local rules used to piece together the tiles cannot produce arbitrarily-large periodic patches). Being aperiodic is a much stronger condition than merely not being periodic. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:54, 10 December 2021 (UTC)
 * I didn't realize the term aperiodic tiling implied more than nonperiodic. Like Aperiodic tiles I wonder if set of tiles could be periodic in one direction and "aperiodic" in the other, a frieze pattern symmetry, or maybe it is just an aperiodic tiling on an infinite cylinder rather than infinite plane? Tom Ruen (talk) 08:10, 11 December 2021 (UTC)
 * There's an example like that for the hyperbolic plane: the binary tiling has versions that have infinite one-dimensional symmetry groups, but cannot have a two-dimensional family of symmetries. —David Eppstein (talk) 08:52, 11 December 2021 (UTC)

Einstein shape
Is this new discovery better here or in the Aperiodic tiling page? Thanks

 * https://phys.org/news/2023-03-geometric-tiled.html
 * Samw (talk) 19:17, 24 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Better in the einstein problem page. Definitely not here. This article is about a specific and different family of aperiodic tilings, not about the general concept of aperiodic tilings. —David Eppstein (talk) 23:27, 24 March 2023 (UTC)

Definition of aperiodic tiling
I changed the definition of an aperiodic tiling because under the previous definition, the Penrose tiling is not aperiodic (since the tiles can be arranged periodically as in Figure 1). David9550 (talk) 20:06, 30 March 2023 (UTC)

title: Talk:Penrose tiling


text:
Talk:Sowing

Delete?
Should the Sowing page be deleted? It's pretty useless... -- Marj Tiefert
 * It can certainly be improved, but it is not at all useless. One of the most important and sacred acts of agriculture of all times. Mahlum 23:33, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Decomposition?
Does a seed decompose when sowed?

Reformatted page and updated information
This rewrite has been done: {{blockquote|1= {{distinguish|sewing}} Sowing is the process of planting seeds.

Pretreatment of seed and soil before sowing
Before sowing, certain seeds first require a treatment prior to the sowing process. This treatment may be seed scarification, stratification, seed soaking or seed cleaning with cold (or medium hot) water.

---Seed cleaning and other preparatory processes should have their own page. It is confusing to have seed cleaning redirect here, when very little substantive or general information is provided. "Seed cleaning" has various colloquial and jargon meanings that should be disambiguated elsewhere. Some seed cleaning and related processes are commonly used for purposes other than sowing. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.139.207.163 (talk) 01:09, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Seed soaking is generally done by placing seeds in medium hot water for atleast 24 to upto 48 hours Seed cleaning is done especially with fruit (as the flesh of the fruit around the seed can quickly become prone to attack from insects or plagues. To clean the seed, usually seed rubbings with cloth/paper is performed, sometimes assisted with a seed washing . Seed washing is generally done by submerging cleansed seeds 20 minutes in 50° Celcius water . This (rather hot than moderatly hot) water kills any organisms that may have survived on the skin of the seed. Especially with easily infected tropical fruit such as lychees and rambutans, seed washings with high temperature water is vital.

In addition to the mentioned seed pretreatments, seed germination is also assisted when disease-free soil is used. Especially when trying to germinate difficult seed (eg certain tropical fruit), prior treatment of the soil (along with the usage of the most suitable soil; eg potting soil, prepared soil or other substrates) is vital. The two most used soil treatments are pasteurisation and sterilisation. Depending on the necessity, pasteurisation is to be preferred as this does not kill all organisms. Sterilisation can be done when trying to grow truly difficult crops. To pasturise the soil, the soil is heated for 15 minutes in an oven of 120° Celcius.

Plants which are usually sown
Among the major field crops, oats, wheat, and rye are sowed, grasses and legumes are seeded, and maize and soybeans are planted. In planting, wider rows (generally 75 cm (30 in) or more) are used, and the intent is to have precise, even spacing between individual seeds in the row; various mechanisms have been devised to count out individual seeds at exact intervals.

---the preceding paragraph is very confusing as it implies distinctions among sowing, seeding and planting while the rest of the article uses those terms interchangeably. Also, implying a distinction is illogical when the heading specifically refers to "plants which are usually sown." If seeding and planting are somehow different from sowing, then they should be in a separate article or at least a separate heading. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.139.207.163 (talk) 01:13, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Sowing depth
In seeding, little if any soil is placed over the seeds. More precisely, seeds can be generally sown into the soil by maintaining a planting depth of about 2-3 times the size of the seed.

Sowing types and patterns
For hand sowing, several sowing types exist; these include :
 * Flat sowing
 * Ridge sowing
 * Wide bed sowing

Several patterns for sowing may me used together with these types; these include:
 * Regular rows
 * Rows that are intented at the even rows (so that the seeds are placed in a crossed pattern). This method is much better as more light may fall on the seedlings as they come out.

Hand sowing
Hand sowing is the process of casting handfuls of seed over prepared ground: broadcasting. Usually, a drag or harrow is employed to incorporate the seed into the soil. Though labor intensive for any but small areas, this method is still used in some situations. Practice is required to sow evenly and at the desired rate. A hand seeder can be used for sowing, though it is less of a help than it is for the smaller seeds of grasses and legumes.

In agriculture, most seed is now sown using a seed drill, which offers greater precision; seed is sown evenly and at the desired rate. The drill also places the seed at a measured distance below the soil, so that less seed is required. The standard design uses a fluted feed metering system, which is volumetric in nature; individual seeds are not counted. Rows are typically about 10-30 cm apart, depending on the crop species and growing conditions. Several row opener types are used depending on soil type and local tradition. Grain drills are most often drawn by tractors, but can also be pulled by horses. Pickup trucks are sometimes used, since little draft is required.

A seed rate of about 100 kg of seed per hectare (2 bushels per acre) is typical, though rates vary considerably depending on crop species, soil conditions, and farmer's preference. Excessive rates can cause the crop to lodge, while too thin a rate will result in poor utilisation of the land, competition with weeds and a reduction in the yield.

Open field
Open-field refers to the form of sowing used historically in the agricultural context whereby fields are prepared generically and left open, as the name suggests, before being sown directly with seed. The seed is frequently left uncovered at the surface of the soil before germinating and therefore exposed to the prevailing climate and conditions. This is in contrast to the seedbed method used more commonly in domestic gardening or more specific (modern) agricultural scenarios where the seed is applied beneath the soil surface and monitored and manually tended frequently to ensure more successful growth rates and better yields.

Information about sowing
Generally, seed packets labels includes:
 * Common plant name and the botanical name (in parentheses).
 * Space and deep: how deep to place the seeds in the soil, space between plants (from one row to the other one and from one plant to the other one in the same row).
 * Height: approximate height the plant will reach when mature.
 * Soil: type of soil the plant prefers.
 * Water: It can indicate "keep the soil lightly damp", "bottom water the plant", "drench the soil with water", "daily misting of water" and "almost dry out before re-watering".
 * Sun: full direct sunlight, partial sun, diffused sunlight, or grows well in the shade.
 * Door and temperature: if the plant is best suited for growing Indoor, Outdoor or both.
 * Live: Perennial or annual.
 * Planting, germination and harvest period.
 * Special requirements, if necessary.

DAB page required?
I came here looking for information on the seeding system used at Wimbledon - there seems to be no way to get there from here without re-searching. As this is a fairly common piece of terminology in the sporting world, does a DAB page need to be created? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.94.137.1 (talk) 13:21, 11 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Done, although sowing/planting isn't seeding at all. Seeding would be when the plants create the seeds. — Llywelyn II   01:28, 10 August 2023 (UTC)

Future article expansion
As mentioned above, this is one of the most heavily ritualized human activities and has been since the Neolithic. There should be a treatment of historical and present context, including links to the Roman Sementivae and whatever they called the ritual where the Chinese emperor had to ritually break ground every so often to ensure healthy harvests. — Llywelyn II   01:28, 10 August 2023 (UTC)

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Talk:Sowing


text:
Milton Berle

Milton Berle (born Mendel Berlinger; מענדעל בערלינגער; July 12, 1908 – March 27, 2002) was an American actor and comedian. His career as an entertainer spanned over eight decades, first in silent films and on stage as a child actor, then in radio, movies and television. As the host of NBC's Texaco Star Theatre (1948–1953), he was the first major American television star and was known to millions of viewers as "Uncle Miltie" and "Mr. Television" during the first Golden Age of Television. He was honored with two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for his work in both radio and TV.

Early life
Milton Berle was born into a Jewish family in a five-story walkup in the Harlem neighborhood of Manhattan. His given name was Mendel Berlinger, but he chose Milton Berle as his professional name when he was 16. His father, Moses Berlinger (1872–1938), was a paint and varnish salesman. His mother, Sarah (Sadie) Glantz Berlinger (1877–1954), changed her name to Sandra Berle when Milton became famous. He had three older brothers (from oldest to youngest): Phil, Frank, and Jack Berle. For many years, the latter two worked on Berle's TV production staff while Phil was a programming executive at NBC.

Child actor
Berle entered show business in 1913 at the age of five when he won a children's Charlie Chaplin contest. He also worked as a child model and was "Buster Brown" for Buster Brown shoes. He appeared as a child actor in silent films. He claimed The Perils of Pauline as his first film appearance, playing the character of a young boy, although this has never been independently verified. In Milton Berle: An Autobiography, he explained that the director told him that he would portray a little boy who would be thrown from a moving train. He said, "I was scared shitless, even when he went on to tell me that Pauline would save my life. This is exactly what happened, except that at the crucial moment they threw a bundle of rags instead of me from the train. I bet there are a lot of comedians around today who are sorry about that."

By Berle's account, he continued to play child roles in other films: Bunny's Little Brother, Tess of the Storm Country, Birthright, Love's Penalty, Divorce Coupons and Ruth of the Range. Berle recalled, "There were even trips out to Hollywood—the studios paid—where I got parts in Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, with Mary Pickford; The Mark of Zorro, with Douglas Fairbanks, Sr.; and Tillie's Punctured Romance, with Charlie Chaplin, Mabel Normand and Marie Dressler." However, Berle's claim to have appeared in Tillie's Punctured Romance has been disputed by film historians including Glenn Mitchell, who in his book, The Chaplin Encyclopedia, writes that Berle's alleged role was most likely played by child actor Gordon Griffith.

In 1916, Berle enrolled in the Professional Children's School.

Vaudeville
Around 1920 at age 12, Berle made his stage debut in a revival of the musical comedy Florodora in Atlantic City, New Jersey, which later moved to Broadway. By the time he was 16, he was working as a master of ceremonies in vaudeville. He is also known to have played small bit parts in several silent films in the 1910s and 1920s, although his presence in some is disputed (see Filmography, below). In 1932, he starred in Earl Carrol's Vanities, a Broadway musical. By the early 1930s, he was a successful stand-up comedian, patterning himself after one of vaudeville's top comics, Ted Healy.

Rising star
In 1933, Berle was hired by producer Jack White to star in the theatrical featurette Poppin' the Cork, a topical musical comedy concerning the repealing of Prohibition. Berle also co-wrote the score for this film, which was released by Educational Pictures. Berle continued to dabble in songwriting: with Ben Oakland and Milton Drake, he wrote the title song for the RKO Radio Pictures release Li'l Abner (1940), an adaptation of Al Capp's comic strip, featuring Buster Keaton as Lonesome Polecat. Berle co-wrote a Spike Jones B-side, "Leave the Dishes in the Sink, Ma".

Radio
From 1934 to 1936, Berle appeared frequently on The Rudy Vallee Hour and attracted publicity as a regular on The Gillette Original Community Sing, a Sunday night comedy-variety program broadcast on CBS from September 6, 1936, to August 29, 1937. In 1939, he was the host of Stop Me If You've Heard This One with panelists spontaneously finishing jokes sent in by listeners.

In the late 1940s, he canceled well-paying nightclub appearances to expand his radio career. Three Ring Time, a comedy-variety show sponsored by Ballantine Ale, was followed by a 1943 program sponsored by Campbell's Soups. The audience participation show Let Yourself Go (1944–1945) could best be described as "slapstick radio", with studio audience members acting out long-suppressed urges—often directed at host Berle. Kiss and Make Up on CBS in 1946 featured the problems of contestants decided by a jury from the studio audience with Berle as the judge. Berle also made guest appearances on many comedy-variety radio programs during the 1930s and 1940s.

Scripted by Nat Hiken and Aaron Ruben, The Milton Berle Show also featured Arnold Stang, later a familiar face as Berle's TV sidekick. Others in the cast were Pert Kelton, Mary Schipp, Jack Albertson, Arthur Q. Bryan, Ed Begley, Brazilian singer Dick Farney and announcer Frank Gallop. Sponsored by Philip Morris, it aired on NBC from March 11, 1947, until April 13, 1948. It ran for an additional season (with new sponsor Texaco), keeping the same format but running concurrently with Berle's better known TV series, from September 11, 1948, to June 15, 1949.

Berle later described this series as "the best radio show I ever did ... a hell of a funny variety show". It served as a springboard for Berle's emergence as television's first major star.

Mr. Television
Berle first appeared on television in 1929 in an experimental broadcast in Chicago which he hosted in front of 129 people. He would return to television 20 years later.

Berle would revive the structure and routines of his vaudeville act for his debut on commercial TV, hosting The Texaco Star Theatre on June 8, 1948, over the NBC Television Network. They did not settle on Berle as the permanent host right away; he was originally part of a rotation of hosts (Berle himself had only a four-week contract). Jack Carter was the host for August. Berle was named the permanent host that fall. Berle's highly visual style, characterized by vaudeville slapstick and outlandish costumes, proved ideal for the new medium. Berle modeled the show's structure and skits directly from his vaudeville shows and hired writer Hal Collins to revive his old routines.

Berle dominated Tuesday night television for the next several years, reaching the number one slot in the Nielsen ratings with as much as a 97% share of the viewing audience. Berle and the show each won Emmy Awards after the first season. Fewer movie tickets were sold on Tuesdays. Some theaters, restaurants, and other businesses shut down for the hour or closed for the evening so their customers would not miss Berle's antics. Berle's autobiography notes that in Detroit, "an investigation took place when the water levels took a drastic drop in the reservoirs on Tuesday nights between 9 and 9:05. It turned out that everyone waited until the end of the Texaco Star Theatre before going to the bathroom."

Television sales more than doubled after Texaco Star Theatre 's debut, reaching two million in 1949. Berle's stature as the medium's first superstar earned him the sobriquet "Mr. Television". He also earned another nickname after ending a 1949 broadcast with a brief ad-libbed remark to children watching the show: "Listen to your Uncle Miltie and go to bed". Francis Craig and Kermit Goell's "Near You" became the theme song that closed Berle's TV shows.

Berle risked his newfound TV stardom at its zenith to challenge Texaco when the sponsor tried to prevent black performers from appearing on his show:

"I remember clashing with the advertising agency and the sponsor over my signing the Four Step Brothers for an appearance on the show. The only thing I could figure out was that there was an objection to black performers on the show, but I couldn't even find out who was objecting. 'We just don't like them,' I was told, but who the hell was 'we?' Because I was riding high in 1950, I sent out the word: 'If they don't go on, I don't go on.' At ten minutes of eight—minutes before showtime—I got permission for the Step Brothers to appear. If I broke the color-line policy or not, I don't know, but later on, I had no trouble booking Bill Robinson or Lena Horne."

Berle's mother Sadie was often in the audience for his broadcasts; she had long served as a "plant" to encourage laughter from his stage show audiences. Her unique, "piercing, roof-shaking laugh" would stand out, especially when Berle made an entrance in an outrageous costume. After feigning surprise he would "ad-lib" a response; for example: "Lady, you've got all night to make a fool of yourself. I've only got an hour!"

Berle asked NBC to switch from live broadcasts to film, which would have made possible reruns (and residual income from them); he was angered when the network refused. However, NBC did consent to make a kinescope of each show. Later, Berle was offered 25% ownership of the TelePrompTer Corporation by its inventor, Irving Berlin Kahn, if he would replace cue cards with the new device on his program. He turned down the offer.

A frequent user of tranquilizers, Berle frequently endorsed Miltown on his show and became one of its leading advocates in 1950s America. Due to his promotion of the drug, Berle was dubbed "Uncle Miltown" by Time magazine.

For Berle's contribution to television, he was inducted to the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1960.

Berle's imperious, abrasive and controlling manner on the show was the inspiration for the 1957 CBS Playhouse 90 production of "The Comedian". starring Mickey Rooney as egomanaical TV comic Sammy Hogarth, who ran his weekly show through explosive tantrums, intimidation, bullying and cruelty. Writer Ernest Lehman had been assigned to profile Berle for a magazine, and captured Berle's high-handedness so completely that the magazine declined to run it, but suggested he fictionalize it and recast it as a novella. When it was picked up for the show, Rod Serling wrote the teleplay. John Frankenheimer directed the live production which received considerable acclaim. The cast included Edmond O'Brien, Kim Hunter and jazz singer Mel Tormé in his first dramatic role, portraying Hogarth's spineless brother Lester. While some speculated the play was based on Jackie Gleason's loud, controlling personality, Berle, aware the production echoed his own reputation, was quoted as saying, "I wasn't that bad". The episode won two Emmy Awards.

TV decline
In 1951, NBC signed Berle to an unprecedented 30-year exclusive television contract at a million dollars a year.

In 1953, Texaco pulled out of sponsorship of the show but Buick picked it up, prompting a renaming as The Buick-Berle Show. The program's format was changed to include the backstage preparations for the variety show. Critics generally approved of the changes, but Berle's ratings continued to fall, and Buick pulled out after two seasons. In addition, "Berle's persona had shifted from the impetuous and aggressive style of the Texaco Star Theater days to a more cultivated but less distinctive personality, leaving many fans somehow unsatisfied."

By the time the again-renamed Milton Berle Show finished its only full season (1955–56), Berle was already becoming history—though his final season was host to two of Elvis Presley's earliest television appearances, April 3 and June 5, 1956. The final straw during that last season may have come from CBS scheduling The Phil Silvers Show opposite Berle. Silvers was one of Berle's best friends in show business and had come to CBS's attention in an appearance on Berle's program. Bilko's creator-producer, Nat Hiken, had been one of Berle's radio writers.

Berle knew that NBC had already decided to cancel his show before Presley appeared. He later hosted the first television version of the popular radio variety series, The Kraft Music Hall from 1958 to 1959, but NBC was finding increasingly fewer showcases for its one-time superstar. By 1960, he was reduced to hosting a bowling program, Jackpot Bowling, delivering his quips and interviewing celebrities between the efforts of that week's bowling contestants.

Life after The Milton Berle Show
In Las Vegas, Berle played to packed showrooms at Caesars Palace, the Sands, the Desert Inn, and other casino hotels. Berle had appeared at the El Rancho, the first Las Vegas Strip full service resort, starting in the late 1940s. In addition to constant club appearances, Berle performed on Broadway in Herb Gardner's The Goodbye People in 1968. He also became a commercial spokesman for the thriving Lum's restaurant chain.

He appeared in numerous films, including Always Leave Them Laughing (released in 1949, shortly after his TV debut) with Virginia Mayo and Bert Lahr; Let's Make Love with Marilyn Monroe and Yves Montand; It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World; The Loved One; The Oscar; Who's Minding the Mint?; Lepke; Woody Allen's Broadway Danny Rose; and Driving Me Crazy.

Freed in part from the obligations of his NBC contract, Berle was signed in 1966 to a new weekly variety series on ABC. Unrelated to the 1950s Texaco Star show, the new 1966 ABC series was also called The Milton Berle Show. made its debut on September 9, 1966, and ABC announced its cancellation within two months. The show failed to capture a large audience and was canceled after half a season. with the final show running on January 6, 1967. Berle later appeared as guest villain Louie the Lilac on ABC's Batman series. Other appearances included stints on The Barbara Stanwyck Show, The Lucy Show, The Jackie Gleason Show, Get Smart, Laugh-In, The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour, The Hollywood Palace, Ironside, F Troop, Fantasy Island, The Mod Squad, I Dream of Jeannie, CHiPs, The Muppet Show, and The Jack Benny Program.

Like his contemporary Jackie Gleason, Berle proved a solid dramatic actor and was acclaimed for several such performances, most notably his lead role in "Doyle Against the House" on The Dick Powell Show in 1961, a role for which he received an Emmy nomination. He also played the part of a blind survivor of an airplane crash in Seven in Darkness, the first in ABC's Movie of the Week series. He also played a dramatic role as a talent agent in The Oscar (1966) and was one of the few actors in that movie to get good notices from critics.

During this period, Berle was named to the Guinness Book of World Records for the greatest number of charity performances made by a show-business performer. Unlike the high-profile shows done by Bob Hope to entertain the troops, Berle did more shows, over a period of 50 years, on a lower-profile basis. Berle received an award for entertaining at stateside military bases in World War I as a child performer, in addition to traveling to foreign bases during World War II and the Vietnam War. The first charity telethon (for the Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation) was hosted by Berle in 1949. A permanent fixture at charity benefits in the Hollywood area, he was instrumental in raising millions for charitable causes.

Late career
On April 14, 1979, Berle guest-hosted NBC's Saturday Night Live. Berle's long reputation for taking control of an entire television production—whether invited to do so or not—was a cause of stress on the set. In addition, he appeared skeptical about the show's satirical bent. One of the show's writers, Rosie Shuster, described the rehearsals for the Berle SNL show and the telecast as "watching a comedy train accident in slow motion on a loop." Upstaging, camera mugging, doing spit-takes, inserting old comedy bits, and climaxing the show with a maudlin performance of "September Song" complete with a pre-arranged standing ovation (something producer Lorne Michaels had never sanctioned) resulted in Berle being banned from hosting the show again. The episode was also barred from being rerun until surfacing in 2003 because Michaels thought it brought down the show's reputation.

As a guest star on The Muppet Show, Berle was memorably upstaged by the heckling theater critics Statler and Waldorf. The Statler and Waldorf puppets were inspired by a character named Sidney Spritzer, played by comedian Irving Benson, who regularly heckled Berle from a box seat during episodes of the 1960s ABC series. Milton Berle also made a cameo appearance in The Muppet Movie as a used car dealer, taking Fozzie Bear's 1951 Studebaker in trade for a station wagon.

In 1974, Berle had a minor altercation with a younger actor/comedian Richard Pryor when both appeared as guests on The Mike Douglas Show. At the time, Berle was discussing the emotional fallout from an experience he had with impregnating a woman with whom he was not married, having to then decide whether or not they would keep the child. During his talk, Pryor let out a laugh, to which Berle took exception and confronted him, stating, "I wish, I wish, Richard, that I could have laughed at that time at your age when I was your age, the way you just laughed now, but I just couldn't ... I told you this nine years ago, and now I'll tell you on the air in front of millions of people: Pick your spots, baby." This prompted Pryor to mockingly quip back, "All right, sweetheart" in a Humphrey Bogart voice.

Another well-known incident of upstaging occurred during the 1982 Emmy Awards, when Berle and Martha Raye were the presenters of the Emmy for Outstanding Writing. Berle was reluctant to give up the microphone as the award's numerous recipients from Second City Television (SCTV) flooded the stage. Berle interrupted actor/writer Joe Flaherty's acceptance speech several times, with comments like, "Hurry up, we're 15 minutes over." After Flaherty made a joke about the size of the SCTV crew rivaling Hill Street Blues, Berle replied sarcastically, "That's funny." Flaherty's follow-up response of "Sorry, Uncle Miltie ... go to sleep," flustered Berle.

In 1984, Berle appeared in drag in the video for "Round and Round" by the 1980s metal band Ratt (his nephew Marshall Berle was then their manager). He also made a brief appearance in the band's "Back For More" video as a motorcyclist.

In 1985, he appeared on NBC's Amazing Stories (created by Steven Spielberg) in the episode "Fine Tunin'". In it, friendly aliens from space receive TV signals from the Earth of the 1950s and travel to Hollywood in search of their idols, Lucille Ball, Jackie Gleason, The Three Stooges, Burns and Allen, and Milton Berle. When Berle realizes the aliens are doing his old material, Uncle Miltie is thunderstruck: "Stealing from Berle? Is that even possible?" Speaking gibberish, Berle is the only person able to communicate directly with the aliens.

One of Berle's most popular performances in his later years was guest-starring in 1992 in The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air alongside Will Smith as womanizing, wise-cracking patient Max Jakey. Most of his dialogue was improvised and he shocked the studio audience by mistakenly blurting out a curse word. He also appeared in an acclaimed and Emmy-nominated turn on Beverly Hills, 90210 as an aging comedian befriended by Steve Sanders, who idolizes him, but is troubled by his bouts of senility due to Alzheimer's disease. He also voiced the Prince of Darkness, the main antagonist in the Canadian animated television anthology special The Real Story of Au Clair De La Lune. He appeared in 1995 as a guest star in an episode of The Nanny as her lawyer and great uncle.

In 1994, Berle released a fitness videotape titled "Milton Berle's Low Impact/High Comedy Workout" which was targeted towards seniors.

Berle was again on the receiving end of an onstage gibe at the 1993 MTV Video Music Awards when RuPaul responded to Berle's reference of having once worn dresses himself (during his old television days) with the quip that Berle now wore diapers. A surprised Berle replied by recycling a line he had delivered to Henny Youngman on his Hollywood Palace show in 1966: "Oh, we're going to ad lib? I'll check my brain and we'll start even."

Berle offstage
In 1947, Milton Berle was one of the founding members of the Friars Club of Beverly Hills at the old Savoy Hotel on Sunset Boulevard. In 1961, the club moved to Beverly Hills. The Friars is a private show business club famous for its celebrity members and roasts, where a member is mocked by his club friends in good fun.

Berle avoided consuming drugs and alcohol, but was an avid cigar smoker, womanizer, and gambler; primarily gambling on horse racing. His enjoyment of the latter may have been responsible for Berle never equaling the wealth of many of his contemporaries.

Purported penis size
Berle was famous within show business for the rumored size of his penis. Phil Silvers once told a story about standing next to Berle at a urinal, glancing down, and quipping, "You'd better feed that thing, or it's liable to turn on you!". In the short story A Beautiful Child, Truman Capote wrote Marilyn Monroe as saying, "Christ! Everybody says Milton Berle has the biggest schlong in Hollywood." At a memorial service for Berle at the New York Friars' Club, Freddie Roman solemnly announced, "On May 1st and May 2nd, his penis will be buried". In 2023, on episode 1478 of WTF with Marc Maron, Arnold Schwarzenegger recalled how he joked during Berle's eulogy, saying, "Look, even though the son of a bitch is dead, they still had a difficult time putting the top on his casket".

Radio shock jock Howard Stern barraged Berle with an array of penis questions during his appearances on Stern's morning talk show in 1988 and 1996. In Berle's 1988 appearance, when fielding phone calls, Stern purposely asked his producer to air only callers whose questions dealt with Berle's penis. In his autobiography, Berle tells of a man who accosted him in a steam bath and challenged him to compare sizes, leading a bystander to remark, "Go ahead, Milton, just take out enough to win". Berle attributed this line to comedian Jackie Gleason and said, "It was maybe the funniest spontaneous line I ever heard". In the oral history Live From New York: An Uncensored History of Saturday Night Live, SNL writer Alan Zweibel describes how Berle opened his bathrobe in his dressing room to show his penis size to Zweibel, only to have cast member Gilda Radner walk into an uncomfortable scene. Although Berle "worked clean" for his entire career, excluding the Friars Club private celebrity roasts, he reportedly used profane language extensively in private.

Personal life
After twice marrying and divorcing showgirl Joyce Mathews, Berle married publicist Ruth Cosgrove ( Rosenthal) in 1953; she died of cancer in 1989. In 1989, Berle stated that his mother was behind the breakup of his marriages to Mathews. He also said that she managed to damage his previous relationships: "My mother never resented me going out with a girl, but if I had more than three dates with one girl, Mama found some way to break it up." He married a fourth time in 1992 to Lorna Adams, a fashion designer 30 years his junior. He had three children, Victoria (adopted by Berle and Mathews), William (adopted by Berle and Cosgrove) and a biological son, Bob Williams, with showgirl Junior Standish (née Jean Dunne Arthur; 1925–2006). Berle had two stepdaughters from his marriage to Adams: Leslie and Susan Brown. He also had three grandchildren: Victoria's sons James and Mathew, and William's son Tyler Daniel Roe, who died in 2014.

Berle's autobiography contains many tales of his sexual exploits. He claimed relationships with numerous famous women including Marilyn Monroe and Betty Hutton, columnist Dorothy Kilgallen, and evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson. The veracity of some of these claims has been questioned. The McPherson story, in particular, has been challenged by McPherson's biographer and her daughter, among others.

In later life, Berle found comfort in Christian Science and subsequently characterized himself as "a Jew and a Christian Scientist." Oscar Levant, when queried by Jack Paar about Berle's adoption of Christian Science, quipped, "Our loss is their loss."

Berle was a Democrat who endorsed Lyndon B. Johnson in the 1964 United States presidential election.

Final role and death
Berle guest-starred as Uncle Leo in the Kenan & Kel special "Two Heads Are Better than None", which premiered in 2000. This would be his last acting role.

In April 2001, Berle announced that a malignant tumor had been found in his colon, but he had declined surgery. Berle's wife said the tumor was growing so slowly that it would take 10 to 12 years to affect him in any significant or life-threatening way. However, one year after the announcement, on March 27, 2002, Berle died in Los Angeles from colon cancer. He died on the same day as Dudley Moore and Billy Wilder.

Berle reportedly left arrangements to be buried with his second wife, Ruth, at Mount Sinai Memorial Park Cemetery in Burbank, but his body was cremated and interred at Hillside Memorial Park Cemetery in Culver City. (Warren Cowan, Berle's publicist, told The New York Times, "I only know he told me he bought plots at Hillside, and it was his idea.") In addition to his third wife, Lorna Adams, Berle was survived by his three children and extended family.

Honors and awards

 * Berle won the Emmy for Most Outstanding Kinescoped Personality in 1950, the same year his show, the Texaco Star Theater, won the Emmy for Best Kinescope Show. He was twice nominated for Emmys for his acting, in 1962 and 1995. In 1979, Berle was awarded a special Emmy Award, titled "Mr. Television."
 * The Hollywood Walk of Fame, on February 8, 1960, inducted Berle with two stars, for television and radio.
 * Berle was in the first group of inductees into the Television Hall of Fame in 1984.
 * On December 5, 2007, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and First Lady Maria Shriver inducted Berle into the California Hall of Fame, located at The California Museum for History, Women and the Arts.

Broadway

 * Earl Carroll's Vanities of 1932 (1932) – revue – in the roles of "Mortimer" in the sketch "Mourning Becomes Impossible", "Joe Miller, Jr." in "What Price Jokes", "Frank" in "Two Sailors", "Paul" in "The Cabinet of Doctor X", the "Announcer" in "Studio W.M.C.A." the "Defendant" in "Trial by Jury" and "Milton" in "The Bar Relief"
 * Saluta (1934) – musical – co-lyricist and performer cast in the role of "'Windy' Walker"
 * See My Lawyer (1939) – play – performer cast in the role of "Arthur Lee"
 * Ziegfeld Follies of 1943 (1943) – revue – performer in the role of "Cecil" in Counter Attack, "J. Pierswift Armour" in The Merchant of Venison, "Perry Johnson" in Loves-A-Poppin, "Escamillio" in Carmen in Zoot, "Charlie Grant" Mr Grant Goes To Washington, "'The Micromaniac' Singer" and "'Hold That Smile' Dancer"
 * I'll Take the High Road (1943) – play – co-producer
 * Seventeen (1951) – musical – co-producer
 * The Goodbye People (1968) – performer cast in the role of "Max Silverman"

Selected filmography

 * 1914: The Perils of Pauline (credit disputed)
 * 1915: Fanchon the Cricket as Bit Role (uncredited)
 * 1917: Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm as Bit Part (uncredited)
 * 1920: Birthright
 * 1920: The Mark of Zorro as Boy (uncredited)
 * 1921: Little Lord Fauntleroy as Boy (uncredited)
 * 1922: Tess of the Storm Country as Bit Role (uncredited)
 * 1923: Ruth of the Range as Bit Role (uncredited)
 * 1933: Poppin' the Cork as Elmer Brown
 * 1937: New Faces of 1937 as Wallington Wedge
 * 1938: Radio City Revels as Teddy Jordan
 * 1940: Li'l Abner (title song with Ben Oakland and Milton Drake)
 * 1941: Tall, Dark and Handsome as Frosty Welch
 * 1941: The Great American Broadcast as Radio Announcer (scenes deleted)
 * 1941: Sun Valley Serenade as Nifty Allen
 * 1941: Rise and Shine as Seabiscuit
 * 1942: A Gentleman at Heart as Lucky Cullen
 * 1942: Whispering Ghosts as H.H. Van Buren
 * 1942: Over My Dead Body as Jason Cordry
 * 1943: Margin for Error as Moe Finkelstein
 * 1949: Always Leave Them Laughing as Kipling 'Kip' Cooper
 * 1959: Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour "Milton Berle Hides Out at The Ricardos'" as himself
 * 1960: The Bellboy as himself / Bellboy (uncredited)
 * 1960: Let's Make Love as himself (uncredited)
 * 1961: The Ladies Man as himself (scenes deleted)
 * 1963: It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World as J. Russell Finch
 * 1965: The Loved One as Mr. Kenton
 * 1966: The Oscar as Kappy Kapstetter
 * 1966: Don't Worry, We'll Think of a Title as Bookstore Customer with Rope (uncredited)
 * 1967: The Happening as Fred
 * 1967: Who's Minding the Mint? as Luther Burton
 * 1967: The Big Valley (Season 3, Episode 3, A Flock of Trouble) as Josiah Freeman
 * 1967: ''Batman (Season 3, Episode 7, "Louie the Lilac") as Louie the Lilac
 * 1968: Where Angels Go, Trouble Follows as The Movie Director: The 'In' Group
 * 1968: For Singles Only as Mr Parker
 * 1969: Can Heironymus Merkin Ever Forget Mercy Humppe and Find True Happiness? as Goodtime Eddie Filth
 * 1969: Seven in Darkness as Sam Fuller
 * 1971: That Girl (Season 5, Episode 15, Those Friars) as himself
 * 1972: Evil Roy Slade as Harry Fern
 * 1972: Journey Back to Oz as The Cowardly Lion (voice)
 * 1975: Lepke as Mr. Meyer
 * 1976: Won Ton Ton, the Dog Who Saved Hollywood as Blind Man
 * 1976: Let's Make a Deal (playing for a home viewer)
 * 1978: Hey, Abbott! as himself (voice)
 * 1979: The Muppet Movie as Mad Man Mooney
 * 1980: CHiPs as himself
 * 1981: General Hospital as Micky Miller
 * 1981: The Fall Guy
 * 1983: Cracking Up as Ms. Sultry
 * 1984: Broadway Danny Rose as himself
 * 1984: The 1st TV Academy Hall of Fame as himself/winner
 * 1984: ''Music Video with Ratt & Milton Berle, Round and round
 * 1985: Pee-wee's Big Adventure as himself (uncredited)
 * 1985: Amazing Stories as himself
 * 1988: Side by Side as Abe Mercer
 * 1989: Going Overboard as himself (uncredited)
 * 1991: Trabbi Goes to Hollywood as Hotel Clerk
 * 1991: Shakes the Clown as Male Clown Barfly (uncredited)
 * 1992: The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air as Max Jakey
 * 1992: The Real Story of Au Clair De La Lune as The Prince of Darkness (voice)
 * 1993: Matlock "The Last Laugh" as Harvey Chase
 * 1995: Beverly Hills, 90210 as Saul Howard
 * 1995: The Nanny as Uncle Manny
 * 1995: Roseanne as Transvestite at Wedding (uncredited)
 * 1995: The 4th of July Parade as Ice Cream Man
 * 1996: Storybook as Illuzor
 * 1996: Sister, Sister (TV Series) The Volunteers as Edgar Boggs
 * 2000: Kenan & Kel as Uncle Leo (final film role)

title: Milton Berle


text:
Talk:Lucas Watzenrode the Elder

Untitled
Ok -- WHAT THE HECK is this doing here? This has got to be one of the best -- an article about someone famous's non-famous grandfather. Will it ever end? JHK
 * If I weren't half-asleep, I'd delete the thing. I'll think about this when I return (probably Tuesday) if nobody has dealt with it before then. Vicki Rosenzweig

My vote is to delete -- asking for others, waiting till Tuesday, April 2.JHK

Well, "Wiki is not paper" and it is unlikely to cause a ambiguity problem...but is it useful knowledge? --rmhermen

 * rmh, the ONLY reason the 'wiki is not paper' excuse would work is if we wanted to become a mirror site for the Latter Day Saints genealogies of everyone who ever existed, which seems to be HJ's intent. I know the Frank Tipler Physics of Immortality argument that we'll eventually all be backed up on disk, but there's no reason wikipedia has to contain an entry for every named individual documented to have lived in the region of Elblag. This is the otherwise utterly unimportant ancestor of an important astronomer, and that's it. MichaelTinkler
 * I don't see any reason for it to be saved either but would it be useful for someone say looking for the political connections of Copernicus? --rmhermen

I vote to keep Copernicus's grandfather, unless server space becomes an issue. It's really mental clutter that I'm worried about. Now, my own grandfather or great-grandfather might not be important -- compared to Copernicus (see Copernican Revolution, an article which if it doesn't exist, should) -- but the immediate ancestry of famous people is often of interest. It sheds light on the character or circumstances of the famous person. User:Ed Poor
 * Yes, Ed - we call that a "supporting paragraph" inside the entry. Notice that the current entry gives the man's street address (Seglergasse). Why?  Because HJ happened to find that in a source?  Does that make it important?  No, it does not. Nupedia proposed the format of a short entry and a long entry, in which case this kind of material would NOT appear in the short entry, but might (and I stress might, Ed) belong in the long entry. MichaelTinkler

 * Still, as long as it does provide true information, according to Wikipedia is not a paper policy it can be kept. This is exactly what i've read: that if you want to put entry about your own small town, you can, because there is no limitation on paper... szopen

 * I suppose it depends on whether you care about general integrity -- wikipedia isn't paper, but it is supposed to be an excyclopedia. As such, any town, as a political and geographical entity, would have a place.  That isn't true in the case of people, though.  Generally, one has to have contributed something for a place in an encyclopedia -- otherwise, one can go to a vanity press job like Who's Who.  In this case, we're talking about someone whose main contribution to the human experience is one of sperm.  IMO, if he can't be shown to have been more than a sperm donor, he doesn't exist.
 * Why do I think this? Because I am a perfeshnul ejimacator -- one of the chief problems in education today is an inability for students to think critically and weigh comparative importance of things.  If articles don't help to reflect these differences, then there is a very good chance that Watzenrode will be given an equal status in the reader's eye as his grandson, the VERY important Copernicus.  The fact that this article was written by someone who also does not understand comparative importance is the ONLY reason the article is here at all -- remember, please, that the same person felt that the time Aeneas Silvius spent as an Imperial clerk was more important than the fact that the man became POPE!!JHK

Removed all discussion of Lucas Watzenrode the Younger, Bp. of Ermland, because it was cribbed, badly re-written and, most importantly, did not belong in an article on Lucas Watzenrode the Elder.JHK

I agree with JHK - I vote to delete. Famous people's relatives who have no significance other than relationship do not warrant a page of their own. I also agree with MichaelTinkler's comment above - if the information didn't warrant a mention or even a link in the Nicolaus Copernicus page, then it doesn't deserve a page of its own. Sure we are interested in his background, in what contributed to forming his character, but the date of his father's marriage and the names of all his rellies? This is really too trivial!!! Graham Chapman

Hey, having just read all of the controversy about this article, I'm dying to read it! Only it's gone away... :(

Wiki is not paper! No, really, it isn't! Ah, come on, I'd be interested in reading about this chap, and that seems to me a good enough reason to have an article on him. :) -- Oliver P. 19:15 Feb 7, 2003 (UTC)

The other Watzenrode
Lucas Watzenrode was indeed an important person in Polish history. But it wasn’t Copernicus’ grandpa, but uncle. More than half of the article is about him already (this article even links to the other Watzenrode in Polish Wiki). Moreover, the information about him here is false and POV, and evidently written in a manner that would help the creator proving Copernicus nationality in favour of German:

Copernicus had an uncle, his mother's brother, also named Lucas Watzenrode, who as bishop of Ermeland strongly supported the independence of Ermeland and helped raise Nicolaus and his brother after their father's death.

''Copernicus' uncle Lucas Watzenrode followed as bishop of Ermland, when the bishop Nicolaus Tungen died in 1489. Bishops were also secular rulers of the land. Lucas Watzenrode had been elected, but Casimir IV, king of Poland etc. did not wish him to be bishop. Casimir IV wanted his son Friedrich to become bishop, to invalidate the Teutonic Knights government and to be able to force Prussia to unite with Poland. Watzenrode however was ordained by the pope as bishop and ruler of Ermland, a part of Prussia, but then an excempt bishopric. The Prussian nobility, Teutonic Knights and a section of the Polish clergy supported him. Polish king Casimir IV did continue with conquest attempts and in 1492 he planned to remove Watzenrode by military force. His death foiled this plan. Watzenrode now was able to have a cordial neighborly working relationship with the sons of Casimir IV, Jan I Olbracht, then Aleksander Jagiellończyk, then Zygmunt I Stary. At times he was adviser to them. He had a good working relationship with the Teutonic Knights, but when necessary, upheld the independend status of Ermeland.''

Watzenrode strongly supported incorporation of Warmia into Poland. He was even chosen a bishop as a person who would be seen kindly by Polish king, because his father supported Poland during Thirteen Years' War against Teutonic Order. It even says that he payed for Copernicus' studies. I wonder which one (Jagiellon University?), because those in Italy were payed by Polish king. I suggest rewriting the article so that it would be about bishop Lucas Watzenrode born 1447 and NPOVing the information.--SylwiaS | talk 19:27, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

The Elder and the Younger
I hope there will be no confusion anymore with these two personaleties who shared the same name.--Dagox 09:56, 2 March 2006 (UTC)
 * How about titling the article about the Younger simply Lucas Watzenrode, and this page Lucas Watzenrode (disambiguation)? I think it would make things much easier, esp that Lucas Watzenrode was an important man and there are many articles about him in encyclopedias, while Lucas Watzenrode the Older is nothing more but a grandpa of Copernicus.--SylwiaS | talk 23:07, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Canon?
Someone categorized Lucas Watzenrode the Elder, a merchant, as a "canon of Warmia" and "canon of Włocławek." Could this be a confusion of the father with the churchman son of the same name, Lucas Watzenrode?

I have deleted the two "canon" categories for Lucas Watzenrode the Elder. If I am mistaken, please reinstate them. Nihil novi (talk) 21:51, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

title: Talk:Lucas Watzenrode the Elder