Activity: Escher Exhibition (4 ESO)

Mathematics and History Departments

REGULAR DIVISION OF THE PLANE1

In addition to being wonderfully engaging art, the work of Maurits Cornelius Escher also displays some of the more beautiful and intricate aspects of mathematics. In 1936 Escher, became obsessed with tessellations, that is, with creating art that used objects to cover a plane so as to leave no gaps. Symmetry became a cornerstone of Eschers famous tessellations. Escher kept a notebook in which he kept background information for his artwork. In this notebook, Escher characterized all possible combinations of shapes, colors and symmetrical properties of polygons in the plane. By doing so, Escher had unwittingly developed areas of a branch of mathematics known as crystallography years before any mathematician had done so!!

These pictures have been created by Escher using the rules of transformational geometry. One of the targets of this activity will be to discover that rules.

This activity has been developed using different materials selected from the following bibliographic sources: AAVV, A Survey of Mathematics with Applications, Eighth Edition (Pearson Education, 2009). Recursos digitales de la Editorial ANAYA (digital.com).

IES Albayzn (Granada)

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Activity: Escher Exhibition (4 ESO)

Mathematics and History Departments

Transformational Geometry
We will now introduce a type of geometry called transformational geometry. In transformational geometry we study various ways to move a geometric figure without altering the shape or size of the figure. When discussing transformational geometry, we often use the term rigid motion. The act of moving a geometric figure from some starting position to some ending position without altering its shape or size is called a rigid motion (or transformation).

When discussing rigid motion of two-dimensional figures, there are four basic types of rigid motions: Reflections, Rotations, Translations, and Glide Reflections. We call these four types of rigid motions the basic rigid motions in a plane. A reflection is a rigid motion that moves a geometric figure to a new position such that (tal que) figure in the new position is a mirror image of the figure in the starting position. In two dimensions, the figure and its mirror image are equidistant from a line called the reflection line or the axis of reflection.

A translation (or glide) is a rigid motion that moves a geometric figure by sliding (deslizar) it along a straight line segment in the plane. The direction and length of the line segment completely determine the translation. A concise way to indicate the direction and the distance that a figure is moved during the translation is with a translation vector.

IES Albayzn (Granada)

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Activity: Escher Exhibition (4 ESO)

Mathematics and History Departments

A rotation is a rigid motion performed by rotating a geometric figure in the plane about a specific point, called the rotation point or the center of rotation. The angle through which the object is rotated is called the angle of rotation.

We will measures angles of rotation using degrees. In mathematics, generally, counterclockwise angles have positive degree measures and clockwise angles have negative degree measures.

A glide reflection is a rigid motion formed by performing a translation (or glide) followed by a reflection.

As a summary of the basic rigid motion in a plane we can bear in mind the following image:

IES Albayzn (Granada)

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Activity: Escher Exhibition (4 ESO)

Mathematics and History Departments

Activities
1) Construct the reflection of polygon ABCDE, shown in Figure a, about line e and the reflection of polygon ABCD, shown in Figure b, about point O.

2) Given the shapes shown in Figure a and b, and translation vector construct the translated shapes (ABCDE).

3) Use the given figure and rotation point O to construct the indicated rotations a) A 30 rotation of point A about point O.

b) A 90 rotation of segment AB about point O.

IES Albayzn (Granada)

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Activity: Escher Exhibition (4 ESO)

Mathematics and History Departments

c) A 30 rotation of trapezoid ABCD about point O.

If you compare this rigid motion to the one in the exercise 1b, what would you say about it?

4) Construct the reflection of polygon shown below about line e.

5) Construct the reflection of polygon shown below about point O.

IES Albayzn (Granada)

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Activity: Escher Exhibition (4 ESO)

Mathematics and History Departments

6) Given triangle OAB, where

0,0 ,

1,3 y

4, 1 :

a) Plot all the points and draw the triangle. b) Construct the translation of triangle OAB using = 5,1 as a translation vector. c) Determine the coordinates of the three vertices of triangle OAB.

7) John has to study this composition that he has found out in an art exhibition, could you help him to answer the following questions?

What rigid motion would you use to transform tile 1 into tile 2? And tile 1 into tile 3? And tile 1 into tile 6? 8) Construct a glide reflection of square ABCD using vector line e. and reflection

IES Albayzn (Granada)

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Activity: Escher Exhibition (4 ESO)

Mathematics and History Departments

9) Determine whether the following Eschers work have been created using reflection, translation, rotation or glide reflection. You can use a tracing paper (a transparent sheet placed over the original) to answer this question.

IES Albayzn (Granada)

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Activity: Escher Exhibition (4 ESO)

Mathematics and History Departments

IES Albayzn (Granada)

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Activity: Escher Exhibition (4 ESO)

Mathematics and History Departments

IES Albayzn (Granada)

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