Welcome to Quantum Magazine's podcast.

Each episode, we bring you stories about developments in science and mathematics.

I'm Susan Vallett.

How does the world come together?

That's the question Hungarian mathematician Gabor Damokos wondered a few years ago, and geometry may have the answer.

In 2016, Gabor Demokos arrived on geophysicist Douglas Jermak's doorstep in Philadelphia.

The two men walked across a gravel lot behind the house. Their feet crunched

over crushed limestone. Democos pointed down at the gravel pieces. How many facets do each of these

have? he asked. He told Gerald Mack that the number was always somewhere around six. Then he asked

a bigger question, one that he

hoped would worm its way into his colleague's brain. What if the world is made up of cubes?

Gerald Mack was hesitant. Sometimes there are a few people that are wizards in your life.

Gabor is a wizard in my life. And by this, I mean, he even has the accent,

you know, he kind of mysteriously arrives on my doorstep. He's in the States for some reason.

He tells me barely before he's here, and then he's in my house, and then before I know it,

he's cast some spell in my hyperly, overly busy U.S. academic parent trying to do everything

life. Somehow he cast this spell and everything else disappears for a moment. And he has me singularly

focused on some completely seemingly weird and a deep thing. Or outlandish, as Democos dubs it.

At first, Gerald Mack objected.

Houses can be built out of bricks, but earth is made of rocks.

Obviously, rocks vary.

Micah flakes into sheets, crystals crack on sharply defined axes.

...