APARNA PANDEY

LA20MCE075

Creative Podcast Script- Does Nature Love Hexagons?

Let’s talk patterns, shall we? Patterns and geometry are everywhere. But nature seem to have a
predilection for the number 6. Beehives. Rocks. Marine skeletons. Insects’ eyes. It could just be a
mathematical coincidence, or could there be some pattern beneath this pattern, why nature arrives
at this particular geometry out of all possible options. Let’s understand it by the help of bubbles. A
bubble is basically some volume of gas, surrounded by a liquid film. It can be surrounded by a lot of
liquid, like water, or just a thin layer, like in soap bubbles. So, why do these bubbles have any shape
at all. The liquid molecules of the bubbles are happier wrapped up on the inside, where the force
attraction exerted on it is balanced, than they are at the edge where the force isn’t balanced. This
forces liquids to adopt shapes with the least area or simply the least surface. Same with dews on
leaves or on a spider’s web. Inside the soap films, attraction between soap molecules contracts the
bubble until this pull of surface tension is balanced by the air pressure pushing out. Bubbles are
round because sphere is the most efficient shape when you want to put in the maximum volume
with the least surface area. What’s cool is if we distort this bubble, the pull of surface tension always
put it back together, to the minimal shape. Now let’s see what happens if we want to pack these
bubbles together. Let’s pretend for a moment that these bubbles were free to choose any shape
they wanted. If we want to construct a wall with bricks of equal size and no wasted area, we only
have three regular polygons to choose from: triangles, squares, or hexagons. So, which is the best?
We can actually test this: two bubbles, a 180-degree intersection. Three, and we get walls meeting
at 120 degrees, but when we add four bubbles, instead of a 90-degree intersection or square
intersection, the bubbles always rearrange themselves in a 120 degrees intersection, the same angle
that defines a hexagon. If the goal is to have more filling with fewer edges, it turns out that
hexagonal wins. Good for you, hexagons.

In the late 19th century, Belgian physicist Joseph Plateau calculated that junction of 120 degrees is
also the most mechanically stable arrangements, where the forces on the films are all balanced.
That’s why bubble juggles it way to hexagonal patterns. Not only does it minimize the parameter,
but it is also the most mechanically stable system.

So, let’s recap, the air inside the bubble wants to fill the most area possible. But there’s a force,
surface tension, that wants to minimize the perimeter. And when bubbles join up, the best balance
of fewer edges and mechanical stability is hexagonal packing.

But is it enough to explain some of the six-sided pattern we see in nature? Basalt columns like
Giant’s Causeway, Devil’s Postpile, and the plains of Catan form from slowing cooling lava. Cooling
pulls the rock to fill less space, just like surface tension pulls on a soap film. Cracks form to release
tension, to reach mechanical stability, and most energy is released per crack if they meet at 120
degrees. The forces are different, but similar principle to solve a similar problem.

What about the facets of an insect’s eye? Here, instead of a physical force, like in the bubble or the
rock, evolution is the motivation. Maximum light-sensing area? That’s good for the insect, but so is
minimizing the amount of cell material around the edges. Just like the bubbles, the best shapes are
hexagons. It also turns out that honeybees make round wax cells at first. And as the wax is softened
by heat from busy bees, it’s pulled by surface tension into stable hexagonal shapes.
So, is nature a mathematician? Some scientists might say nature loves efficiency or nature seeks out
the lowest energy. And some people might say nature follows the rules of mathematics. However,
you look at it, nature definitely has a way of using simple rules to create elegant solutions