this post was submitted on 19 Jul 2025
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Science Memes

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(page 2) 14 comments
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[–] Lemminary@lemmy.world 1 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

I wonder if this relates to them having six legs somehow. Like, they're able to measure where the next hex should be based on leg length and direction or something.

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[–] Hirom@beehaw.org 1 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

I suspect having round shape pushing against each other isn't enought to get a hex shape.

In the picture, cookies are tiled such that those in the center are surrounded by 6 other cookies and have a hex shape. Others are surrounded by 2 to 4 cookies and are not hex. So it probably has to do with the tiling.

[–] Landless2029@lemmy.world 1 points 2 months ago

Cookie Catan!

[–] yetAnotherUser@discuss.tchncs.de 0 points 2 months ago (2 children)

No they don't (necessarily))??

Notice how they didn't spread the cookies evenly on the tray? If they had, it would've resulted in squares - not hexagons. On the left, some cookies look more like squares already.

Hexagons are just one possible way to tile the plane without gaps. The only reason bees use hexagons is because tiling a plane with hexagons results in the lowest possible total perimeter for equally sized shapes. And bees build the edges of their comb shapes using wax, which is expensive.

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[–] Coreidan@lemmy.world 0 points 2 months ago

Fuck reading instructions. Amirite???

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