Why are square shapes rare in nature? I know some rocks/minerals can be square but mostly everything is curved , is there a biological reason why it’s hard for natural objects to have straight lines?
In: 0
There are probably a million little reasons why evolution avoids straight lines and flat faces. Chief among them is that living things generally grow outwards which doesn’t really lend itself to making geometric shapes. Blocky shapes would therefore be very inefficient. Shapes with edges have increased surface area per volume, which requires more energy to regulate your own temperature. Corners are structural weak points. Another big reason is that almost all living things move, and rigid structures are more likely to break under.
That’s somewhat like asking “why are rocks that are exactly 128.7 mm long so rare in nature?”
A straight line is a very specific type of line.
There’s only one way you can make a straight line.
There’s infinite ways you can make a non-straight line.
Many processes in nature are random, accidental, and/or stochastic. In these kinds of circumstances, it’s much more likely that a result won’t be a straight line.
Not the only reason, but one major reason.
Another reason is the simple fact that a square isn’t as structurally sound as other shapes. Edges / corners are zones of stress concentration, and are also the thinnest part of the body, so, for example, when it comes to rocks, even if you make a square rock, the edges will get round out rather soon due to outside forces.
Things that form under the influence of gravity (e.g. tree trunks, animal legs, …) are straight though, partly because gravity acts in a straight line always in the same direction.
Honest question but my first thought, does water have something to do with this? Since the glaciers pretty much carved everything does water running over things constantly smooth out their edges?
The same reason your clothes don’t fold themselves in the dryer, despite that being an entirely valid configuration for them to arrive in completely by chance by the end of the cycle.
There are an astronomically larger amount of non-folded configurations as there are ones you’d consider folded. At the end of the day, the laundry being folded is just as chaotic of a configuration as them not being folded, it’s just your brain that applies the significance to any particular configuration.
In biology, a big thing is the ratio of surface area to volume. Like a water balloon, the goal is the most water with the least balloon, because making the balloon part is hard work.
A sphere is how you store the most amount of stuff with the least amount of packaging.
So for small things like cells, it’s more efficient to be round.
The downside is that when a cell gets too big, it can’t bring enough supplies through the cell membrane to sustain itself, so it divides into two.
On a larger scale, if there is no biological advantage to having straight lines or corners, they won’t exist because living bodies are lazy.
Latest Answers