Clearly it must be that Saturn is a truncated icosahedron or similar. it was probably laser-cut by the aliens in the galactic planet factory.
Saturn's North Pole Is A Hexagon, And No One Knows Why
21–30 of 31 posts
Re: Saturn's North Pole Is A Hexagon, And No One Knows Why
#22Re: Saturn's North Pole Is A Hexagon, And No One Knows Why
#23I can posit a theory: A hexagon is a boundary shape with the least energy. What you are really probably seeing is a circle that has pushed outwards against another set of forces and reached equilibrium (differing temperatures, gasses, who knows what). I have been playing with voronoi diagrams and diffusion limited aggregation recently , and it is amazing some of the structures that will emerge when a system reaches e…
I find it hard to imagine what dynamics could give rise to a regular shape that's not a circle. Could you elaborate?
Re: Saturn's North Pole Is A Hexagon, And No One Knows Why
#24>It turned out that the rate of ring rotation changed the shape of the pattern from a circle to just about anything, including ovals, triangles, squares and various polygons. Wow. Imagine if it were a square on Saturn. I think that would provide more fodder for sci fi writers than the hexagon.
You can build hexagons really easily out of equilateral triangles, which seems even purere than squares to me.
Re: Saturn's North Pole Is A Hexagon, And No One Knows Why
#25I can posit a theory: A hexagon is a boundary shape with the least energy. What you are really probably seeing is a circle that has pushed outwards against another set of forces and reached equilibrium (differing temperatures, gasses, who knows what). I have been playing with voronoi diagrams and diffusion limited aggregation recently , and it is amazing some of the structures that will emerge when a system reaches e…
I find it hard to imagine what dynamics could give rise to a regular shape that's not a circle. Could you elaborate?
Well, crystals would be obvious example.
Re: Saturn's North Pole Is A Hexagon, And No One Knows Why
#26I can posit a theory: A hexagon is a boundary shape with the least energy. What you are really probably seeing is a circle that has pushed outwards against another set of forces and reached equilibrium (differing temperatures, gasses, who knows what). I have been playing with voronoi diagrams and diffusion limited aggregation recently , and it is amazing some of the structures that will emerge when a system reaches e…
I find it hard to imagine what dynamics could give rise to a regular shape that's not a circle. Could you elaborate?
Its "common knowledge" that standard twist drills sometimes cut stable polygons instead of perfect circles if its a wimpy metal for the drill and a tough metal for the work (which is why woodworkers don't see this often). Thats why machinists rough cut a hole with a standard twist drill about 1/32 small then ream to precise diameter. Take something wiggly-ish thats X units long and it'll tend to catch in a corner, then sweep out a radius of X units until it slips free (and typically gets stuck in the next corner). Unfortunately this is stable and self reinforcing. Hexagons and higher order polygons are pretty rare usually you get somewhat oversize triangle-ish shaped hole. Yes the sides are not precisely flat they are curved.
So the above is a factual statement of reality. A wild conjecture is this metalworking effect might be a physical manifestation of what the OP is talking theoretically about. A further (pair of?) wild conjecture is either my example or the OPs example could have something to do with saturn's hexagon. I would not be completely surprised if there is a numerological oscillation set up where 1/6th (or 1/3rd) of a planetary rotation is exactly long enough for prevailing winds or a sonic boom or something like that to cross the diameter of the hexagon. Or we're seeing a weird phase change trick as "something" evaporates and condenses in response to a rolling atmospheric high pressure zone.
There's also a circle packing argument where at a deeper atmospheric layer than we can see, there's six rotating vortexes which just fit within the hex.
All I can say is I'm thankful its a stable 6-agon instead of a stable 5-agon or we'd never hear the end of it from the nutcases.
Re: Saturn's North Pole Is A Hexagon, And No One Knows Why
#27I can posit a theory: A hexagon is a boundary shape with the least energy. What you are really probably seeing is a circle that has pushed outwards against another set of forces and reached equilibrium (differing temperatures, gasses, who knows what). I have been playing with voronoi diagrams and diffusion limited aggregation recently , and it is amazing some of the structures that will emerge when a system reaches e…
I find it hard to imagine what dynamics could give rise to a regular shape that's not a circle. Could you elaborate?
Try packing circles as closely together as possible. You will see that the best packing has one circle in the center with 6 circles around it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circle_packing#Packings_in_the... If each circle then expands equally to fill the gaps, you will end up with a bunch of hexagons. https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&...
Re: Saturn's North Pole Is A Hexagon, And No One Knows Why
#28What about Rayleigh–Bénard convection?
"Convective Bénard cells tend to approximate regular right hexagonal prisms, particularly in the absence of turbulence"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rayleigh-B%C3%A9nard_convection
Re: Saturn's North Pole Is A Hexagon, And No One Knows Why
#29Re: Saturn's North Pole Is A Hexagon, And No One Knows Why
#30I bet on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faraday_wave : The waves can take the form of stripes, close-packed hexagons, or even squares or quasiperiodic patterns. See also http://nanopatentsandinnovations.blogspot.de/2012/11/new-typ...