Honeycomb honeycomb conjecture, this was given by Jan Brożek and proved much later by Thomas Hales. Thus, a hexagonal structure uses the least material to create a lattice of cells within a given volume. A second reason, given by D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson, is that the shape simply results from the process of individual bees putting cells together: somewhat analogous to the boundary shapes created in a field of soap bubbles. In support of this, he notes that queen cells, which are constructed singly, are irregular and lumpy with no apparent attempt at efficiency. The closed ends of the honeycomb cells are
Honeycomb (geometry) Honeycomb (geometry) In geometry, a honeycomb is a "space filling" or "close packing" of polyhedral or higher-dimensional "cells", so that there are no gaps. It is an example of the more general mathematical "tiling" or "tessellation" in any number of dimensions. Its dimension can be clarified as "n"-honeycomb for a honeycomb of "n"-dimensional space. Honeycombs are usually constructed in ordinary Euclidean ("flat") space. They may also be constructed in non-Euclidean spaces, such as hyperbolic honeycombs. Any finite uniform polytope can be projected to its circumsphere to form a uniform honeycomb in spherical space. There are infinitely many honeycombs, which have