Name: 為什麼熔岩冷卻後會變成完美的六邊形？科學告訴你原因！ (How Does Lava Make Perfect Hexagons?)
Uploaded: 2025-09-07T21:01:20.000Z
Duration: 7 min 42 s

進階被動語態

Sometimes in nature, you stumble across something that just seems too perfect to have been made without prior planning.

在大自然中，有時你會偶然發現一些看似過於完美的東西，而這些東西都是在沒有事先計劃的情況下完成的。

關係子句

Like those carrots that grow to look like little people, or the fact that the Earth is just the right distance from the Sun to not freeze or fry.

比如那些長得像小人的胡蘿蔔，或者地球與太陽的距離恰到好處，不會結冰或煎炸。

Or the fact that, occasionally, lava can cool into monumental hexagonal structures that look like temples and walkways for titans.

或者，熔岩偶爾會冷卻成不朽的六角形結構，看起來就像泰坦巨人的廟宇和走道。

But impressive as the basaltic columns like the ones at Giant's Causeway in Northern

但是，像北部巨人堤道（Giant's Causeway）上的玄武岩石柱那樣令人印象深刻的石柱，也有很多。

Ireland are, they aren't really ancient engineering projects.

愛爾蘭是，它們並不是真正的古代工程項目。

Instead, they're the product of some particularly elegant math and physics.

相反，它們是一些特別優雅的數學和物理學的產物。

And by understanding them, scientists can tap into our planet's geological history and its engineering potential.

通過了解它們，科學家們可以挖掘地球的地質歷史和工程潛力。

The Giant's Causeway is one of the most impressive natural structures on the planet.

巨人堤道是地球上最令人印象深刻的自然建築之一。

The UNESCO World Heritage Site is made up of more than 40,000 hexagonal basalt columns that descend down into the sea across roughly 3 kilometers of coastline.

聯合國教科文組織世界遺產由 4 萬多個六角形玄武岩柱組成，這些玄武岩柱在大約 3 公里長的海岸線上向下延伸入海。

For a long time, people struggled to believe that such an impressive landscape could be natural, so they've come up with some pretty fantastical tales to explain how it came to look that way.

長期以來，人們一直難以相信如此壯觀的地貌會是天然形成的，是以他們想出了一些天方夜譚的故事來解釋它是如何變成這樣的。

The most famous story is about an Irish giant called Finn McCool, who built the causeway to get to Scotland to fight a rival giant.

最有名的故事講的是愛爾蘭巨人芬恩-麥考爾（Finn McCool）的故事，他修建堤道是為了前往蘇格蘭與對手的巨人作戰。

And another version of the myth describes how Finn battled storms and built the causeway to reach a Scottish maiden who he loved.

而另一個版本的神話則描述了芬恩如何與風暴搏鬥，修建堤道，以到達他所愛的蘇格蘭少女身邊。

However, while both of these make for great fireside tales, geological evidence can provide an even more dramatic origin story.

不過，雖然這兩個故事都很適合在爐邊講述，但地質證據可以提供一個更加戲劇化的起源故事。

60 million years ago, the ancient continent of Laurasia started to break apart into what would eventually become North America and Europe, as the North Atlantic Ocean grew between them.

6000 萬年前，隨著北大西洋在兩塊大陸之間的延伸，古老的勞拉西亞大陸開始分裂成最終的北美洲和歐洲。

This tectonic rifting was caused by cataclysmic volcanic eruptions, which saw lava pouring out over the landscape that now makes up Northern Ireland and Western Scotland.

這種地殼斷裂是由災難性的火山爆發造成的，熔岩傾瀉而下，形成了現在北愛爾蘭和蘇格蘭西部的地貌。

It was a similar situation to what we see in Iceland today, where runny basaltic lava formed rivers and pooled into lakes.

這與我們今天在冰島看到的情況類似，流淌的玄武岩熔岩形成河流，彙集成湖。

The first influx of lava came from at least six eruptions, but then there was a pause in volcanic activity.

熔岩的首次湧入來自至少六次噴發，但隨後火山活動暫停。

The lava solidified and then weathered into a landscape, with low hills and wide valleys that became covered in forests.

熔岩凝固後風化成地貌，低矮的山丘和寬闊的山谷被森林覆蓋。

Eventually, the volcanoes started up again, and this time, the lava filled up the valleys, burning away trees, and creating a 90 meter deep lava lake that'd be deep enough to swallow pretty much the whole of the Statue of Liberty, pedestal and all.

最終，火山再次爆發，這次，熔岩填滿了山谷，燒燬了樹木，形成了一個 90 米深的熔岩湖，其深度足以吞沒整個自由女神像，包括基座和所有部分。

Over time, the lava lake cooled slowly and evenly into basaltic rock.

隨著時間的推移，熔岩湖慢慢冷卻，均勻地變成了玄武岩。

At some point in the process of cooling, the basalt became sculpted into tens of thousands of hexagonal columns, which have been further exposed and shaped by relentless coastal weathering.

在冷卻過程中，玄武岩被雕刻成數以萬計的六角形柱體，這些柱體在無情的海岸風化作用下進一步暴露和成型。

The regular hexagonal pattern of columns do seem to be too perfect to be natural, but their shapes are the result of some fairly straightforward math and physics.

規則的六角形柱狀圖案似乎過於完美，不像是自然形成的，但它們的形狀卻是一些相當簡單的數學和物理學的結果。

Most substances take up more space when they're liquid than they do when solid, so when something cools and solidifies, it becomes smaller, contracting in three dimensions.

大多數物質在液態時比固態時佔據更多的空間，是以當物體冷卻凝固時，它就會變小，在三維空間中收縮。

If the volume of liquid starts out contained, like in a lava lake contained between valley walls, then it puts tension across the whole volume as it contracts.

如果一開始液體的體積是封閉的，比如在谷壁之間的熔岩湖中，那麼它在收縮時就會在整個體積中產生張力。

It's still trying to fill that volume, but it has a lot less stuff to do the actual filling.

它仍在努力填充這個體積，但實際填充的東西少了很多。

The first bit to cool is the top surface, because it's exposed to the cold air.

首先冷卻的是頂部表面，因為它暴露在冷空氣中。

And it releases tension by cracking, just like the mud cracks that form on a dry lakebed.

它通過開裂來釋放張力，就像乾涸湖床上形成的泥漿裂縫一樣。

At first, those stress-relieving microfractures all have random orientations.

起初，這些應力釋放微裂縫的方向都是隨機的。

But before long, these fractures self-organize into regular polygons.

但沒過多久，這些裂縫就會自行組織成規則的多邊形。

And that's where nature gets to show off its favorite shape, the hexagon.

這就是大自然展示它最喜歡的形狀--六邊形的地方。

In lots of different structural systems, hexagons turn out to be the strongest and most efficient way of packing things together.

在許多不同的結構系統中，六邊形都是最堅固、最有效的組合方式。

Their trick lies not in the shapes themselves, but in the joints between them.

它們的訣竅不在於形狀本身，而在於它們之間的連接。

The sides of all the adjacent hexagons meet at an angle of 120 degrees, which distributes stress equally across an area without shearing.

所有相鄰六邊形的邊相交成 120 度角，這樣就能在不產生剪切的情況下在整個區域內平均分配應力。

So if mechanical strength is what you're really after, then hexagons really are the best-a-gons.

是以，如果你真正追求的是機械強度，那麼六邊形確實是最好的。

Once the surface has started to crack hexagonally, then the lower insulated layers follow suit.

一旦表面開始出現六角形裂紋，下面的隔熱層也會跟著出現裂紋。

Just like when you're splitting wood, the split that starts at the top propagates downward as the material breaks, following the path of least resistance.

就像劈柴一樣，當材料斷裂時，從頂部開始的裂縫會沿著阻力最小的路徑向下傳播。

Continue that down through 90 meters of cooling lava lake, and you're left with eerily perfect basalt columns.

繼續向下，穿過 90 米長的冷卻熔岩湖，就會看到令人毛骨悚然的完美玄武岩柱。

And sure, if you look long enough, you're bound to find a bunch of not-hexagons among them too, caused by small-scale irregularities in the lava or the landscape.

當然，如果你看得足夠久，你也一定會在其中發現一些非六角形，這是由熔岩或地形的小範圍不規則造成的。

But on the whole, the hexagons and their 120-degree angles are going to dominate.

但總的來說，六邊形及其 120 度角將佔據主導地位。

However, even though math can explain the geometry, it doesn't tell us about how this process actually happens in real time.

然而，儘管數學可以解釋幾何圖形，但它並不能告訴我們這個過程是如何實時發生的。

One of the biggest questions we had about these hexagonal clusters was whether the fracturing happened at the moment of solidification, or when the solid basalt was hot, cold, or somewhere in between.

我們對這些六角形團塊的最大疑問之一是，斷裂是在凝固時發生的，還是在固態玄武岩處於高溫、低溫或兩者之間時發生的。

So in 2018, scientists from the UK did some experimental research, heating up columns of basalt until they were at their melting point, and watching them solidify again, in the hopes of catching the fractures in action.

是以，2018 年，英國的科學家們做了一些實驗研究，將玄武岩柱加熱至熔點，然後觀察它們再次凝固的過程，希望能捕捉到斷裂的動作。

This was the first time something like this had been done by people rather than the planet, and it allowed them to pin down the precise temperature of column formation.

這是第一次由人類而不是地球來完成這樣的工作，這使他們能夠精確地確定柱體形成時的溫度。

They found that the hexagonal fractures form not long after the lava solidifies into rock, between about 890 and 840 degrees Celsius.

他們發現，六角形裂縫是在熔岩凝固成岩石後不久形成的，大約在 890 至 840 攝氏度之間。

That's around 100 degrees lower than the solidification temperature, and much warmer than what most scientists had assumed.

這比凝固溫度低約 100 度，比大多數科學家假設的溫度要高得多。

Figuring out the conditions that create these columns is useful outside of the giant's

弄清產生這些柱子的條件，對巨人的研究之外也很有用。

Milky Way, because these columns are found all over the world.

銀河，因為這些柱子遍佈世界各地。

There's colonnades in Iceland, Portugal, Romania, Mexico, Greece, Vietnam, and America, among others.

冰島、葡萄牙、羅馬尼亞、墨西哥、希臘、越南和美國等地都有柱廊。

So knowing how they form gives us insights into the geology of each of these places.

是以，瞭解了它們的形成過程，我們就能深入瞭解這些地方的地質情況。

And these columns aren't even limited to our planet.

這些專欄甚至不侷限於我們的地球。

They've been spotted in satellite images of a crater wall on Mars, revealing some of the red planet's fiery tectonic past.

火星隕石坑壁的衛星影像中發現了它們，揭示了這顆紅色星球熾熱的構造歷史。

The columns aren't identical everywhere we find them, likely due to varying cooling rates and chemical differences.

在我們發現的所有地方，這些柱子都不完全相同，這可能是由於冷卻速度和化學成分的不同造成的。

And researchers from China have shown that some fancy numerical modeling can help to simulate just how these columns are likely to form.

而來自中國的研究人員已經證明，一些花哨的數值建模可以幫助模擬這些柱體可能是如何形成的。

That can be important if you're planning to build around your basalt, since it's useful to predict just how fractured the bedrock is.

如果你打算在玄武岩周圍進行建設，這一點可能很重要，因為它有助於預測基岩的斷裂程度。

Not only that, but engineers can also apply the physics of lava fracturing to our quest for efficient, clean geothermal energy.

不僅如此，工程師們還可以將熔岩斷裂的物理學原理應用到我們對高效、清潔地熱能源的探索中。

In 2009, geothermal engineers were drilling deep into hot volcanic rock in Iceland, when all of their cooling, lubricating fluid was suddenly and unexpectedly lost, draining away into the rock.

2009 年，地熱工程師在冰島高溫火山岩深處進行鑽探時，他們的冷卻潤滑液突然意外流失，全部流入岩石中。

But the 2018 experimental results revealed that hexagonal cracking can open up solid rock when it's still hot, increasing its permeability to heat and fluids up to a billionfold.

但 2018 年的實驗結果表明，六角形裂縫可以在固體岩石仍處於高溫時將其打開，使其對熱量和流體的滲透性增加達十億倍。

This helps to explain the engineers' fluid loss, but also offers engineers an opportunity in the future.

這有助於解釋工程師們的液體損失，同時也為工程師們提供了一個未來的機會。

Since geothermal energy relies on the release of heat from deep in the Earth, these hot, fractured rocks could be targeted for more efficient geothermal boreholes.

由於地熱能源依賴於從地球深處釋放熱量，這些炙熱的斷裂岩石可以成為更高效地熱鑽孔的目標。

Of course, nobody's going to be drilling into the giant's causeway for geothermal power any time soon.

當然，沒有人會在短時間內鑽進巨人的堤道來獲取地熱能。

But this natural wonder, along with its hexagonal fellows across the solar system, is helping us to better understand our planet's history, as well as our own future.

但這一自然奇觀，以及它在太陽系中的六邊形夥伴們，正在幫助我們更好地瞭解我們星球的歷史，以及我們自己的未來。

So while it may not be the result of some giant's love affair, it's still pretty special.

是以，雖然它可能不是某個巨人的愛情結晶，但它仍然非常特別。