Spatial Modeling > Tessellation of Space > Definition
Steven Schwartzman's
The Words of Mathematics says:
tessellate (verb), tessellation (noun): from Latin
tessera "a square tablet" or "a die used for gambling." Latin
tessera may have been borrowed from Greek tessares, meaning
"four," since a square tile has four sides. The diminutive of tessera was
tessella, a small, square piece of stone or a cubical tile used in
mosaics. Since a mosaic extends over a given area without leaving any region
uncovered, the geometric meaning of the word tessellate is "to cover the plane
with a pattern in such a way as to leave no region uncovered." By extension,
space or hyperspace may also be tessellated.
