Islamic Geometry & Algebra
📋 What it is
Scholars in the Islamic Golden Age founded ALGEBRA and created intricate geometric TESSELLATIONS — patterns that tile a surface with no gaps.
🗣️ Coach says
The words tell the story: "algebra" comes from al-Khwarizmi’s book (al-jabr), and "algorithm" comes from his name. Artists of this era, focusing on geometry, built dazzling tessellations — shapes repeated to cover a wall with no gaps or overlaps. Math and art were one subject: symmetry, angles, and tiling.
🧠 Memory hook
Al-Khwarizmi → "algebra" AND "algorithm". Tessellation = tiles a surface with NO gaps or overlaps.
😂 Giggle
Why did the Egyptian mathematician love the Nile?
Because it had so many natural divisions!
😲 Whoa!
The word you use for a computer’s step-by-step recipe — "algorithm" — is literally the name of a mathematician from over 1,200 years ago.
✅ Quick check: What does it mean for shapes to TESSELLATE?
Say your answer out loud first — then reveal.
They fit together to cover a surface completely, with no gaps and no overlaps.
A tessellation tiles the plane exactly — the heart of Islamic geometric art.
🧪 Try it! (2 minutes)
Find a real tessellation (floor tiles, a honeycomb, a chessboard) and check: any gaps? any overlaps?