Hexagons in Extreme Physics

Physics reaches for hexagons over and over, for the same efficiency reason bees do. Graphene, the one-atom-thick carbon sheet that is far stronger than steel, arranges its atoms in a perfect hexagonal lattice. That geometry is why graphene is both extraordinarily strong and electrically conductive.

Basalt columns at the Giant's Causeway in Ireland formed as cooling lava cracked into hexagons. Insect compound eyes use hexagonal lenses, and Saturn's north pole hosts a strange hexagonal cloud pattern thousands of kilometers across. Systems that minimize something tend to settle on six sides.