![]() Note that the coloring guaranteed by the four-color theorem will not in general respect the symmetries of the tessellation. The four color theorem states that for every tessellation of a normal Euclidean plane, with a set of four available colors, each tile can be colored in one color such that no tiles of equal color meet at a curve of positive length. When discussing a tiling that is displayed in colors, to avoid ambiguity one needs to specify whether the colors are part of the tiling or just part of its illustration. (This tiling can be compared to the surface of a torus.) Tiling before coloring, only four colors are needed. Tessellations are also used in computer graphics where objects to be shown on screen are broken up like tessellations so that the computer can easily draw it on the monitor screen.If this parallelogram pattern is colored before tiling it over a plane, seven colors are required to ensure each complete parallelogram has a consistent color that is distinct from that of adjacent areas. Each of these has many fascinating properties which mathematicians are continuing to study even today. There are many other types of tessellations, like edge-to-edge tessellation (where the only condition is that adjacent tiles should share sides fully, not partially), and Penrose tilings. There are eight such tessellations possible All the other rules are still the same.įor example, you can use a combination of triangles and hexagons as follows to create a semi-regular tessellation. If you look at the rules above, only rule 2 changes slightly for semi-regular tessellations. ![]() If you use a combination of more than one regular polygon to tile the plane, then it's called a "semi-regular" tessellation. The mathematics to explain this is a little complicated, so we won't look at it here So what's unique to those 3 shapes (triangle, square and hexagon)? As it turns out, the key here is that the internal angles of each of these three is an exact divisor of 360 (internal angle of triangle is 60, that of square is 90, and for a hexagon is 120). You can see that there is a gap and that's not allowed. Let's try with pentagons and see what shape we come up with. You may wonder why other shapes won't work. Let me show you examples of these two here. What are the other two? They are triangles and hexagons. Of course, you would have guessed that one is a square. Each vertex (the points where the corners of the tiles meet) should look the same.All the tiles must be the same shape and size and must be regular polygons (that means all sides are the same length).The tessellation must cover a plane (or an infinite floor) without any gaps or any overlaps.There are only three rules to be followed when doing a "regular tessellation" of a plane ![]() If you use only one kind of polygon to tile the entire plane - that's called a "Regular Tessellation"Īs it turns out, there are only three possible polygons that can be used here. There are different kinds of tessellations – the ones of most interest are tessellations created using polygons. The word “Tiling” is also commonly used to refer to "tessellations". Of course, when we are talking about floors, the shapes used to cover it are mostly rectangles or squares (in fact, the word " tessellation" comes from the Latin word tessella - which means " small square"). The one difference here is that technically a plane is infinite in length and width so it's like a floor that goes on forever. That is a good example of a "tessellation". And you'll notice that the floor is covered with some tiles or marbles of different shapes. That is a flat surface - called a "plane" in mathematical terms. ![]() To explain it in simpler terms – consider the floor of your house. A tessellation is simply is a set of figures that can cover a flat surface leaving no gaps. ![]()
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