“What’s your favorite shape?” is generally a question we ask 5-year-olds, not grown adults. But maybe if we put it into more advanced terms—”What’s the best polygon?”—we’d be compelled to give it some genuine thought.
Since there’s an entire field of math dedicated to triangles, that might seem like a logical answer. But, most human-made things around us are made up of rectangles, so maybe they’re the best. Then again, there are much more interesting quadrilaterals than squares and rectangles (hey, rhombus!) in addition to pentagons, hexagons, heptagons (which I don’t think I’ve ever even seen), octagons, nonagons—so many “gons” to choose from.
As it turns out, there is an answer to this question—at least according to popular YouTube creator CGP Grey.
The answer? Hexagons. Who knew, right?
If you have doubts that the six-sided shape deserves the title of “best,” CGP Grey’s video might change your mind.
In it, we see how bees use hexagons to make honeycomb. That’s not by accident; it’s because hexagons are actually the most efficient shape for tiling. It’s the same reason bees’ eyes are made up of tons of tiny hexagons—and why the back of our eyes are too.
Snowflakes have six sides, which alone is reason enough for the hexagon to be the bestagon, but the reason they’re six-sided is super cool. Saturn has a mysterious, humongous hexagon of gases the size of six Earths, which is weird but also super cool.
But that’s just the peripheral stuff. There’s a fundamental atomic reason why hexagons are the bestagons—strength and stability which allows hexagons to create the strongest atomic material in the universe.
And, of course, Settlers of Catan.
If you have doubts, let CGP Grey convince you. By the end, you’ll have to at least admit that hexagons are pretty darn cool, even if you’re partial to some other polygon.
