
The interior angle of a hexagon is 120 ∘, 120 ∘, and the sum of three interior angles is 360 ∘. There are three hexagons meeting at each vertex. An interior angle of a square is 90 ∘Figure 10.103, the tessellation is made up of regular hexagons. There are four squares meeting at a vertex.

In Figure 10.102, the tessellation is made up of squares.

Escher became obsessed with the idea of the “regular division of the plane.” He sought ways to divide the plane with shapes that would fit snugly next to each other with no gaps or overlaps, represent beautiful patterns, and could be repeated infinitely to fill the plane. The Dutch graphic artist was famous for the dimensional illusions he created in his woodcuts and lithographs, and that theme is carried out in many of his tessellations as well. These movements are termed rigid motions and symmetries.Ī good place to start the study of tessellations is with the work of M. The topic of tessellations belongs to a field in mathematics called transformational geometry, which is a study of the ways objects can be moved while retaining the same shape and size. We will explore how tessellations are created and experiment with making some of our own as well.

There are countless designs that may be classified as regular tessellations, and they all have one thing in common-their patterns repeat and cover the plane. These two-dimensional designs are called regular (or periodic) tessellations. It may be a simple hexagon-shaped floor tile, or a complex pattern composed of several different motifs. Repeated patterns are found in architecture, fabric, floor tiles, wall patterns, rug patterns, and many unexpected places as well. In this section, we will focus on patterns that do repeat. What's interesting about this design is that although it uses only two shapes over and over, there is no repeating pattern. Notice that there are two types of shapes used throughout the pattern: smaller green parallelograms and larger blue parallelograms. The illustration shown above (Figure 10.101) is an unusual pattern called a Penrose tiling.

Apply translations, rotations, and reflections.\)Īfter completing this section, you should be able to:
