In fact, the word 'tessellation' derives from tessella, the diminutive form of the Latin word tessera, an individual, typically square, tile in a mosaic. Escher, or the breathtaking tile work of the 14th century Moorish fortification, the Alhambra, in Granada, Spain. Like π, e and φ, examples of these repeating patterns surround us every day, from mundane sidewalks, wallpapers, jigsaw puzzles and tiled floors to the grand art of Dutch graphic artist M.C. Science, nature and art also bubble over with tessellations. It even bears a relationship to another perennial pattern favorite, the Fibonacci sequence, which produces its own unique tiling progression. The golden ratio (φ) formed the basis of art, design, architecture and music long before people discovered it also defined natural arrangements of leaves and stems, bones, arteries and sunflowers, or matched the clock cycle of brain waves. Euler's number (e) rears its head repeatedly in calculus, radioactive decay calculations, compound interest formulas and certain odd cases of probability. Pick apart any number of equations in geometry, physics, probability and statistics, even geomorphology and chaos theory, and you'll find pi (π) situated like a cornerstone. Tessellations - gapless mosaics of defined shapes - belong to a breed of ratios, constants and patterns that recur throughout architecture, reveal themselves under microscopes and radiate from every honeycomb and sunflower.

Mathematics achieves the sublime sometimes, as with tessellations, it rises to art. Within its figures and formulas, the secular perceive order and the religious catch distant echoes of the language of creation. We study mathematics for its beauty, its elegance and its capacity to codify the patterns woven into the fabric of the universe.

Tessellation in nature examples