
Equilateral triangles, squares and regular hexagons are the only regular polygons that will tessellate. Why does a hexagon tessellate? A tessellation is a pattern created with identical shapes which fit together with no gaps. Regular polygons tessellate if the interior angles can be added together to make 360°.
How many polygons can tessellate?
Only three regular polygons tessellate: equilateral triangles, squares, and regular hexagons. No other regular polygon can tessellate because of the angles of the corners of the polygons. In order to tessellate a plane, an integer number of faces have to be able to meet at a point.
What is tessellation in geometry?
Tessellation refers to the arrangement of shapes closely fitted together, especially of polygons in a repeated pattern without gaps or overlapping just as in tiling. Equilateral triangles, squares and regular hexagons are the only regular polygons that will tessellate.
What types of planes can be tesselated?
A plane can be uniformly tesselated by regular triangles, squares, and hexagons. A hyperbolic plane can be uniformly tesselated by heptagons or apeirogons, each regular polygon meeting two others at a vertex. There are many other regular polygonal tilings. [ 2]
Why do all parallelograms tessellate?
The most common and simplest tessellation uses a square. Squares easily form horizontal strips: Stacks of these strips cover a rectangular region and the pattern can clearly be extended to cover the entire plane. The same technique works with parallelograms, and so: All parallelograms tessellate.

Can an equilateral triangle tessellate a plane?
Some shapes can be used to tessellate the plane, while other shapes cannot. For example, a square or an equilateral triangle can tessellate the plane (in fact any triangle or parallelogram can), but if you try to cover the plane with a regular pentagon, you'll find there's no way to do it without leaving gaps.
Which polygon will tessellate a plane?
Only three regular polygons (shapes with all sides and angles equal) can form a tessellation by themselves—triangles, squares, and hexagons.
How do you know if a regular polygon can tessellate the plane?
A regular polygon can only tessellate the plane when its interior angle (in degrees) divides 360 (this is because an integral number of them must meet at a vertex). This condition is met for equilateral triangles, squares, and regular hexagons.
What kinds of regular polygons can be used for regular tessellations check all that apply apex?
The regular polygons that can be used to form a regular tessellation are an equilateral triangle, a square, and a regular hexagon.
Can regular octagons and equilateral triangles tessellate the plane?
Equilateral triangles, squares and regular hexagons are the only regular polygons that will tessellate.
What kinds of triangles work in a tessellation?
Equilateral triangles have three sides the same length and three angles the same. Can you make them fit together to cover the paper without any gaps between them? This is called 'tessellating'.
Which polygon will not tessellate a plane?
Regular tessellation We have already seen that the regular pentagon does not tessellate. A regular polygon with more than six sides has a corner angle larger than 120° (which is 360°/3) and smaller than 180° (which is 360°/2) so it cannot evenly divide 360°.
Which of the following shapes will not tessellate a plane?
Circles or ovals, for example, cannot tessellate. Not only do they not have angles, but you can clearly see that it is impossible to put a series of circles next to each other without a gap.
Can all irregular polygons tessellate?
While any polygon (a two-dimensional shape with any number of straight sides) can be part of a tessellation, not every polygon can tessellate by themselves! Furthermore, just because two individual polygons have the same number of sides does not mean they can both tessellate.
Do all regular polygons tessellate Why or why not?
In Tessellations: The Mathematics of Tiling post, we have learned that there are only three regular polygons that can tessellate the plane: squares, equilateral triangles, and regular hexagons.
Which polygon will not tessellate a plane?
Regular tessellation We have already seen that the regular pentagon does not tessellate. A regular polygon with more than six sides has a corner angle larger than 120° (which is 360°/3) and smaller than 180° (which is 360°/2) so it cannot evenly divide 360°.
Can all irregular polygons tessellate?
While any polygon (a two-dimensional shape with any number of straight sides) can be part of a tessellation, not every polygon can tessellate by themselves! Furthermore, just because two individual polygons have the same number of sides does not mean they can both tessellate.
Does a hexagon tessellate?
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 . Therefore, every quadrilateral and hexagon will tessellate.
Can a regular Heptagon tessellate a plane?
Regular heptagons, of course, can't tile a plane by themselves.
Which polygons tessellate with a single shape?
Triangles, squares and hexagons are the only regular polygons which tessellate with a single shape. Other shapes may tessellate with more than one shape polygon.
Why do polygons tessellate?
The reason that polygons tessellate is because their sides are perfect match for itself. For example, a hexagon can have six hexagons surrounding it without overlap or spaces in between. However, there are multiple other polygons which are unable to tessellate because their interior angle is extremely large and causes a space or an overlap when trying to fit all sides with another exact same polygon. In finality, the reason that some polygons tessellate is because their interior angles measure 60, 90, an
What is tessellation in math?
Tessellation refers to the arrangement of shapes closely fitted together, especially of polygons in a repeated pattern without gaps or overlapping just as in tiling. Equilateral triangles, squares and regular hexagons are the only regular polygons that will tessellate. Therefore, there are only three regular tessellations.
What are some examples of regular polyhedra?
platonic tessellations of Riemann surfaces. Examples of such figures include the genus 3 Klein {7,3}^8 tessellation of 24 heptagons and the Dyck {8,3}^6 tessellation of 12 octagons used to describe possible allotropes of carbon and boron nitride exhibiting low density negative curvature zeolite-like structures. The dual of a related genus 3 double cube {4,2·3} tessellation consisting of four hexagons meeting at each vertex is used by Sadoc and Charvolin in their topological theory of bilayers in liquid crystal and micellar structures. Similar platonic tessellations of non-zero genus provide geometric models for the double point groups used in molecular physics such as the genus 2 {3,4+4} tessellation for the double octahedral group and the genus 5 {3,2·5} tessellation for the double icosahedral group. [ 3]
How to tessellate a plane?
In order to tessellate a plane, an integer number of faces have to be able to meet at a point. For regular polygons, that means that the angle of the corners of the polygon has to divide 360 degrees. In addition, for all convex polygons the sum of the exterior angles have to sum to 360 degrees, and for regular polygons that means the exterior angles have to be equal, and sum to 360 degrees. This means that the interior angle of a regular n-gon is 180 ∘ − 360 ∘ / n. The number of regular n-gons you can fit around a corner is therefore 360 ∘ 180 c i r c − 360 c i r c n = 360 ∘ n 180 ∘ n − 360 c i r c = n 1 2 n − 1 = 2 n n − 2, and is only possible when that is an integer.
Why are there only 3 regular tessellations?
The reason why only this three regular tessellations exist has to do with the fact that equilateral triangles, squares, and regular hexagons each have interior angles whose measures are factors of 360°, and the total angle is 360° in a circle.
What can a sphere be tesselated by?
A sphere can be uniformly tesselated by triangles, squares, and pentagons. [ 1]
Answer
Tessellation is possible only for equilateral triangles, squares and regular hexagons. Therefore, there are only three regular polygons that tessellate.
New questions in Mathematics
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