Just wondering what people might say...

In nature we never see perfect circles, perfect triangles or perfect polygons such as the Platoic solids? Everytime we see thing that resemble these figures but are in some way flawed, like a crystal for example. I know theoretically we can describe such figures, but why are they not met in the real world? Or are they? 

Edited January 19, 20187 yr by ZeroZero

I was reading the other day that neutron stars are pretty close to perfect spheres.

However, even if there were a perfect Platonic solid, you couldn't know. You could only say that it appeared to be perfect within the limits of measurement.

OK, but to the limits of the measurements? 

See your monitor screen. It's made of pixels. Full HD = 1920 x 1080 pixels = ~ 2 mln pixels.

You can draw circle, triangle. They look fine from distance. After zooming in, reveal they're made of pixels.

After zooming in the Universe, it reveals that it's made of atoms.

 

Why there is no perfect crystals? See how they were created.. Because they're contaminated..

f.e. Diamond is made of Carbon. But Carbon has two stable isotopes C-12 and C-13. C-13 is 13/12 = ~8% heavier than C-12. And there is also trace of C-14, made by cosmic rays, collected by plants, eaten by animals. It decays to N-14. Imagine you put them together.. and after a while, after making artificial Diamond, some C-14 will decay, and you have no more pure Carbon in your crystal... there is contamination, Nitrogen atom..

 

Your explanation is a good one and is accepted. I wonder if there are any perfect shapes at the level of a wave, or perhaps at the level of quarks? 

17 minutes ago, ZeroZero said:

I wonder if there are any perfect shapes at the level of a wave, or perhaps at the level of quarks? 

http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110525/full/news.2011.321.html