The nature of Hexagons

Written By Nina Wang

Today, we learned about the importance of hexagons. Hexagons appear more in our life than we realize. Although I've used wooden pencils for years, I never truly realized that were hexagonal shapes. It got me curious as to how and why they were hexagons. In today's lecture, we learned that honeycombs were hexagonal shapes because it allowed the bees to use the least amount of wax to create a shape that had a bigger area/space. I assumed this same reason applied to pencils, but I decided to research some more.

No matter what situation, resources are always important. So, similar to a honeycomb, pencils are hexagon shapes because it is one of the more effective ways to use wood. It uses most of the material while creating an ergonomic shape. Another reason for its hexagonal shape is the way pencils are created. Pencils use wood, specifically softwood, because it must be soft enough to sharpen but strong enough to hold its shape when being used. The wood arrives to factories in slats. Grooves are carved inside to hold the "lead", or graphite. The graphite is glued to one piece of slat, while another is glued on top, creating a "sandwich". The "sandwich" is then cut by forming three sides using an upper cutter, and the same on the lower cutter. 

This technique makes total sense, but without researching it, this process never would have occurred to me when thinking of how pencils are made. Because they are made from flat pieces of wood and cut separately, the hexagon is a much better shape because it utilizes most of the wood, therefore cutting away less excess wood material. 

Hexagons are not only found in pencils and honeycomb. They are found in many other things such as snowflakes, nuts & bolts, and even the lenses of a dragonfly eye. The reason snowflakes are hexagons is because of the orientation of water molecules. When water freezes, the molecule changes orientations, two water molecules come together to form a hexagonal shape.

Another common but never noticeable use of hexagonal shapes is nuts & bolts. The hexagon allows it to be easily gripped, which allows more torque. The degree of roundness on a hexagon allows it to grip the tool easily. Lastly, the lens of a dragonfly eye is also made of hexagons. On one eye, there are over 30,00 hexagonal lenses. This allows them to have a vision known as ultra-multicolor. They can differ far more colors than the human eye. 

Nina Wang
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