Marjorie Rice
Encyclopedia
Marjorie Rice is an American
homemaker
most famous for her discoveries in geometry
. She lives in San Diego.
In 1975, Rice came across a Scientific American
article on tessellation
s. Despite having only a high-school education, she began devoting her free time to discovering new ways to tile the plane using pentagon
s. She developed her own system of notation
to represent the constraints on and relationships between the sides and angles of the polygons and used it to discover four new types of tessellating pentagons
and over sixty distinct tessellations. Rice's work was eventually examined by mathematics professor Doris Schattschneider, who deciphered the unusual notation and formally announced her discoveries to the mathematics community.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
homemaker
Homemaker
Homemaking is a mainly American term for the management of a home, otherwise known as housework, housekeeping or household management...
most famous for her discoveries in geometry
Geometry
Geometry arose as the field of knowledge dealing with spatial relationships. Geometry was one of the two fields of pre-modern mathematics, the other being the study of numbers ....
. She lives in San Diego.
In 1975, Rice came across a Scientific American
Scientific American
Scientific American is a popular science magazine. It is notable for its long history of presenting science monthly to an educated but not necessarily scientific public, through its careful attention to the clarity of its text as well as the quality of its specially commissioned color graphics...
article on tessellation
Tessellation
A tessellation or tiling of the plane is a pattern of plane figures that fills the plane with no overlaps and no gaps. One may also speak of tessellations of parts of the plane or of other surfaces. Generalizations to higher dimensions are also possible. Tessellations frequently appeared in the art...
s. Despite having only a high-school education, she began devoting her free time to discovering new ways to tile the plane using pentagon
Pentagon
In geometry, a pentagon is any five-sided polygon. A pentagon may be simple or self-intersecting. The sum of the internal angles in a simple pentagon is 540°. A pentagram is an example of a self-intersecting pentagon.- Regular pentagons :In a regular pentagon, all sides are equal in length and...
s. She developed her own system of notation
Mathematical notation
Mathematical notation is a system of symbolic representations of mathematical objects and ideas. Mathematical notations are used in mathematics, the physical sciences, engineering, and economics...
to represent the constraints on and relationships between the sides and angles of the polygons and used it to discover four new types of tessellating pentagons
Pentagon tiling
In geometry, a pentagon tiling is a tiling of the plane by pentagons. A regular pentagonal tiling on the Euclidean plane is impossible because the internal angle of a regular pentagon, 108 is not a divisor of 360...
and over sixty distinct tessellations. Rice's work was eventually examined by mathematics professor Doris Schattschneider, who deciphered the unusual notation and formally announced her discoveries to the mathematics community.