12.7. Tessellations http://www.ck12.org
12.7 Tessellations
Here you’ll learn what a tessellation is and how to tell whether or not a figure will tessellate.
What if you were given a hexagon and asked to tile it over a plane such that it would fill the plane with no overlaps
and no gaps? Could you do this? After completing this Concept, you’ll be able to determine if a figure tessellates.
Watch This
MEDIA
Click image to the left for use the URL below.
URL: http://www.ck12.org/flx/render/embeddedobject/52457CK-12 Foundation: Chapter12TessallationsA
MEDIA
Click image to the left for use the URL below.
URL: http://www.ck12.org/flx/render/embeddedobject/10290Teachertubemath: Create a Tessellation
Guidance
You have probably seen tessellations before, even though you did not call them that. Examples of tessellations are: a
tile floor, a brick or block wall, a checker or chess board, and a fabric pattern. Atessellationis a tiling over a plane
with one or more figures such that the figures fill the plane with no overlaps and no gaps. Here are a few examples.
Notice the hexagon (cubes, first tessellation) and the quadrilaterals fit together perfectly. If we keep adding more,
they will entirely cover the plane with no gaps or overlaps. The tessellation pattern could be colored creatively to
make interesting and/or attractive patterns. To tessellate a shape it must be able to exactly surround a point, or the
sum of the angles around each point in a tessellation must be 360◦. Therefore, every quadrilateral and hexagon will