Geometric incompatibility, the inability of a material’s rest state to be realized in Euclidean space, underlies shape formation in natural and synthetic thin sheets. Classical Gauss and Mainardi-Codazzi-Peterson incompatibilities explain many patterns in nature, but they do not exhaust the mechanisms that frustrate thin elastic sheets. We identify a new incompatibility that forbids smooth stretching-free configurations, even when the rest state of the elastic sheet locally satisfies the Gauss and Mainardi-Codazzi-Peterson compatibility conditions. We demonstrate this principle in a model of surface growth with positive Gaussian curvature, where a geometric horizon forms, leading to the onset of frustration. Experiments, simulations, and theory show that the sheet responds by nucleating periodic d-cone-like dimples. We show that this obstruction to stretching-free configurations is topological, and we point to open questions concerning the origin of frustration.

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• Continuum mechanics
• Elasticity
• Pattern formation
• Surfaces
• Geometry