TessellationsBy Joe Belnap

Overview

According to Math 4 Kids- Basically, a tessellation is a way to tile a floor (that goes on forever) with shapes so that there is no overlapping and no gaps.

http://www.coolmath4kids.com/tesspag1.htmlhttp://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/6a/Wallpaper_group-p3-1.jpg/300px-Wallpaper_group-p3-1.jpg

M.C. ESCHER

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M.C. Escher used tessellations in his art.

Tessellations in Nature

http://androidos.in/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/honeycomb.jpg

Many regular tessellations can be found in nature: Beehive, pineapple, snake skin, etc.

Regular Tessellations

A regular tessellation is a regular polygon that can tile a flat surface using the same type of polygon. There are only three regular tessellations.

Semi-Regular Tessellations

Semi regular tessellations are a mix of two or more regular polygons to fill a flat plane with no gaps or open spaces. There are eight semi-regular tessellations that tessellate.

Why do only certain shapes tessellate?

Each polygon that can tessellate has an interior angle that can be added with any other polygons’ interior angles. For example, the interior angle of an equilateral triangle is 60o. The interior angle of a quadrilateral is 90o. When a point is picked in this tessellation the surrounding angles all add up to 360o.

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