I'm a little off topic but I note geologists have been scratching their heads for some time over why basaltic columns form in the shape of a hexagon.  “In 1804, Watts suggested that "molten magma solidified around a series of isolated centres to form large plastic balls, which when pressed together gave the typical hexagonal symmetry" (Spry, 1962).”  (http://volcano.oregonstate.edu/education/facts/col_joint.html)

Geology then dismissed the ‘circles squash into hexagons’ theory and now think:

 “ Basalt columns form because the lava shrinks between 5 and 10 percent as it crystallizes; mineral grains occupy less volume than the melt from which they crystallized. The lava cools first at the top and bottom, cracking like drying mud into vertical polygons, most of which have five or six sides…..”  (page 249, Northwest Exposures, A Geological Story of the Northwest, by David Alt and Donald Hyndman)

If honey crystallized into hexagonal columns, I’m sure someone would explain it with the preamble, “Why it’s elementary my Dear Watson…”  And I’d believe them.

Ted 

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