Hexagons Are the Best Shape, If You Disagree Here’s Why You’re Wrong

 by Anjali Arackal

Hexagons are the best shape. Normally, qualifiers like “best” are subjective, but not in this case; in the next 500~ words, I will convince you why we should ditch the obsession with right-angled mainstream basic choices like squares and rectangles (boring!) and instead honour the humble six-sided polygon as it clearly reigns superior. Just look at bees, Saturn, bubbles, aircraft, ice, and biochemistry!

Picture a lot of hexagons tiled in a plane. What are you imagining? Probably honeycomb. Bees construct hives in order to have the highest honey to wax ratio (i.e the most area for the least amount of wall, as wax is very labour-intensive to produce). Some say that they produce circles initially, but over time these are distorted to fill the wasted space, producing…hexagons. Fun fact: the eyes of bees use hexagonal tubes to allow light to enter, based on the premise that maximum light can pass through for minimum wall. The cells in the back of your eyes are hexagonal for the same reasons!

Even if it’s not intentional, hexagons are objectively the best choice for bees. They are the “only regular polygon to tile a plane without self-division”, a phrase that looks a lot but is actually relatively simple, much like the reasons for the hexagon’s supremacy. Squares and triangles are also regular polygons that tile a plane, which might be the obvious choices, but they both can be infinitely divided into smaller squares and triangles, respectively; how big is the single square or triangle unit? It changes, based on how much you divide it further! Hexagons tile a plane without resorting to what one might call (I definitely call) cheating. A plane made of tiled squares is just infinite numbers of parallel lines, and although the triangle tries to save itself by being at least somewhat interesting to look at, one can almost…see a different shape being made by the triangles… Tiled triangles are really just hexagons with extra steps. Of course, there are a myriad of other options to tile planes, but the overly complicated ones are inefficient in terms of area:wall ratio (as “complicated” means adding more lines, and in this case a “line” takes a lot of effort to produce). 

The dominance of hexagons isn't even limited to Earth. Avert your eyes, if you will, from Saturn’s showy rings. Somehow, shapeless clouds have swirled into a hexagon, with each side longer than the Earth’s diameter, on its north pole, simultaneously changing colour to become distinguishable from the rest of the gas giant. How? Why? Another astronomical mystery for now, but clearly extraterrestrial life, if it exists, agrees about the superiority of hexagons. 

Hexagons are a supremely strong shape. When it tiles, the join between three hexagons consists of three 120° angles, which happen to be the most mechanically stable arrangement, since if stress is exerted on one third, the other two “legs” can exert an equal and opposite force in a very effective way. This is why graphene (a single sheet of carbon in hexagonal tiles) is currently the strongest atomic material in the universe.

Bubbles! As soon as possible, they abandon their simple circles to form the closest they can to hexagons, trying to get that perfect 120:120:120 split.

Hexagon tiles are incredibly flexible as they’re relatively weak perpendicular to the plane, which means honeycomb panelling (sandwiching hexagon tiling between two flat sheets) is used in many industries for its strength and lightweight nature, for example in aeroplane wings which need to be flexible as well as strong. 

Biologically, sugars are often hexagons, and the nitrogenous bases in our DNA are partial hexagons. You would not survive without the unique properties of hexagons. 

All ice 1ₕ (virtually all the ice present in the biosphere; the exception is ice 1c, which is only seen in the upper atmosphere) is made up of, you guessed it, hexagonal crystals in a tetrahedral formation. It’s the same mechanism that makes snowflakes six-sided. 

Once you start looking for it, hexagons are everywhere in nature. Clearly this is a sign from the universe that hexagons have attained a natural excellence that we, as a society, have ignored for far too long. We’ve had the Stone Age, the Bronze Age, the Iron Age; I’d even say the so-called Silicon Age or Information Age has had its day. It is now time for.. the Hexagon Age.  

Inspired by https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=thOifuHs6eY.