On 28 May 2003 at 8:02, Rick Green wrote: > Do you have any more examples to add to my list > of the special uses of six-sidedness? The 200 inch mirror of the telescope at Mount Palomar was cast before the computer era, by technicians at Corning Glass. The engineers spent a couple years calculating with their slide rules to find the perfect shape for maximum strength and rigidity for this huge glass object, which we all know is not only brittle, but weak and subject to movement. What they came up with was the hexagon for the reinforcement structure of the back of the mirror. The first cast was cooled too quickly and cracked, so they had to redo it, and take a year to cool the castiing, with rigid control of the temperature, so that it just cooled a couple degrees each day. Of course the bees knew all along how to take a weak and fragile material and maximize its strength by using hexagons. And they didn't even have slide rules. Dave in SC USA Thinking they were taught by someone more brilliant than me... The Pollination Home Page: http://pollinator.com :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: -- Visit www.honeybeeworld.com/BEE-L for rules, FAQ and other info --- ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::