January 5, 2026
Cube-spiracy, anyone?
What if the world is made of cubes? Uncovering the universal geometry of geology
Math says rocks average into cubes — commenters cry Minecraft, foams, and ‘old news’
TLDR: Two scientists say random rock breakage trends toward cube-like shapes with about six faces. The comments split between excited applications and skeptical “we knew this,” with foam-geometries and Minecraft jokes; if true, it could help predict erosion and rockslides, making geology a little more blocky and useful.
Two scientists claim nature secretly loves cubes: break rocks randomly and, on average, you get six-faced, cube-ish fragments. The paper, nicknamed Plato’s Cube, has geologists buzzing about real-world uses like erosion and rockslide prediction, and a few whispering “Plato called it.” Cue the comments: pure chaos, pure comedy. Taco cart origin story included.
The loudest contrarian, metalman, insists foam geometry is the real universal rule, with bubble junctions meeting at the same non-right angle — translation: there’s more than one “universal” shape story. Skeptics like brennanpeterson wave it off as old hat, pointing to columnar basalt and saying this adds little. Someone else even deadpanned it’s a 2020 headline recycled. Meanwhile, az09mugen drops the meme bomb: “We could be in Minecraft indeed ^^,” spawning blocky jokes and pixel art riffs.
Then the vibe turns philosophical. MORPHOICES wonders why totally different systems (rocks, traffic, org charts) end up looking similar — the same shapes, different lives. Fans gush that pure math predicting nature, with nearly no physics, is the real magic trick. Detractors clap back: show us the new stuff. Either way, the cube cult is thriving. Read the backstory at Quanta and see Plato’s Timaeus for the OG cube lore.
Key Points
- •Domokos proposed and mathematically proved that randomly fractured rocks tend to form fragments averaging six faces and eight vertices, approximating cubes.
- •Domokos and Jerolmack pursued cross-scale evidence—from microscopic fragments to planetary surfaces—supporting the cube-like average in nature.
- •Their work resulted in a new mathematical framework describing fragmentation, published as “Plato’s Cube and the Natural Geometry of Fragmentation.”
- •Experts suggest the framework could help understand erosion of cracked cliffs and mitigate hazardous rock slides.
- •The approach emphasizes geometry with minimal reliance on physics, illustrated by a 2D random-slicing experiment on convex mosaics.