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Islamic geometrical patterns for the teaching of mathematics of symmetry. (English) Zbl 1202.01005

Summary: From the 10th to the 13th century A.D., aided by mathematicians [A. Ă–zdural, Hist. Math. 27, No. 2, 171–201 (2000; Zbl 0963.01003)], the artists and artisans in the Islamic civilization produced a large body of symmetric geometrical patterns. Many of these are extremely elegant and convey something deeply profound about the beauty of geometrical forms which cannot be put into words.
Islamic patterns may of course be enjoyed purely as decorations. They can be enjoyed for aesthetic experience of art and science in unity. But these patterns depict a variety of geometrical structures and constraints of the Euclidean space. Hence they are of great merit as educational aids for the teaching of many topics in mathematics, physics, chemistry, crystallography, computer science and design. In particular they can be valuable in the teaching of geometry to school children and provide a visual gateway for the teaching of abstract notions of Group Theory at the university level.
This paper will introduce Islamic geometrical patterns, say something about their characteristics and origins and point the reader to a variety of resources on Islamic Patterns (books, papers, videos and websites) which may be utilised in the teaching of the mathematics of symmetry.

MSC:

01A07 Ethnomathematics (general)
01A30 History of mathematics in the Golden Age of Islam
00A35 Methodology of mathematics

Citations:

Zbl 0963.01003
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