Plato was right: Earth is made, on average, of cubes

Science Daily  July 20, 2020
The question an international team of researchers (Hungary, USA- University of Pennsylvania) answered is what shapes are created when rocks break into pieces. Remarkably, they found that the core mathematical conjecture unites geological processes not only on Earth but around the solar system as well. Part of this understanding is that the components that break out of a formerly solid object must fit together without any gaps. As it turns out, the only one of the so-called platonic forms — polyhedra with sides of equal length — that fit together without gaps are cubes. To test whether their mathematical models held true in nature, the team measured a wide variety of rocks, hundreds that they collected and thousands more from previously collected datasets. No matter whether the rocks had naturally weathered from a large outcropping or been dynamited out by humans, the team found a good fit to the cubic average. However, special rock formations exist that appear to break the cubic “rule.”…read more. TECHNICAL ARTICLE