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Original Link: http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/LstYlBwg4wE/from-rocks-to-icebergs-the-natural-world-tends-to-break-into-cubes
From Rocks To Icebergs, the Natural World Tends To Break Into Cubes
sciencehabit shares a report from Science Magazine: Researchers have found that when everything from icebergs to rocks breaks apart, their pieces tend to resemble cubes. The finding suggests a universal rule of fragmentation at scales ranging from the microscopic to the planetary. The scientists started their study "fragmenting" an abstract cube in a computer simulation by slicing it with 50 two-dimensional planes inserted at random angles. The planes cut the cube into 600,000 fragments, which were, on average, cubic themselves -- meaning that, on average, the fragments had six sides that were quadrangles, although any individual fragment need not be a cube. The result led the researchers to suspect that cubes might be a common feature of fragmentation. The researchers tried to confirm this hunch using real-world measurements. They headed to an outcrop of the mineral dolomite on the mountain Harmashatarhegy in Budapest, Hungary, and counted the number of vertices in cracks in the stone face. Most of these cracks formed squarish shapes, which is one of the faces of a cube, regardless of if they had been weathered naturally or had been created by humans dynamiting the mountain. Finally, the team created more-powerful supercomputer simulations modeling the breakup of 3D materials under idealized conditions -- like a rock being pulled equally in all directions. Such cases formed polyhedral pieces that were, in an average sense, cubes. The researchers reported their findings in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Original Link: http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/LstYlBwg4wE/from-rocks-to-icebergs-the-natural-world-tends-to-break-into-cubes
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