Editing Cube (section)

== Applications ==
{{multiple image
 | image1 = One-red-dice-01.jpg
 | caption1 = A six-sided [[dice]]
 | image2 = Skewb.jpg
 | caption2 = A completed [[Skewb]]
 | image3 = St Marks Place, East Village, Downtown New York City, Recover Reputation.jpg
 | caption3 = A sculpture [[Alamo (sculpture)|''Alamo'']]
 | total_width = 360
}}
Cubes have appeared in many roles in popular culture.  It is the most common form of [[dice]].{{r|mclean}}  Puzzle toys such as pieces of a [[Soma cube]],{{r|masalski}} [[Rubik's Cube]], and [[Skewb]] are built of cubes.{{r|joyner}} ''[[Minecraft]]'' is an example of a [[Sandbox game|sandbox video game]] of cubic blocks.{{r|moore}} The outdoor sculpture [[Alamo (sculpture)|''Alamo'']] (1967) is a cube standing on a vertex.{{r|rz}} [[Optical illusions]] such as the [[impossible cube]] and [[Necker cube]] have been explored by artists such as [[M. C. Escher]].{{r|barrow}}  [[Salvador Dalí]]'s painting ''[[Corpus Hypercubus]]'' (1954) contains an unfolding of a [[tesseract]] into a six-armed cross; a similar construction is central to [[Robert A. Heinlein]]'s short story "[[And He Built a Crooked House]]" (1940).{{r|kemp|fowler}} The cube was applied in [[Leon Battista Alberti|Alberti]]'s treatise on [[Renaissance architecture]], ''[[De re aedificatoria]]'' (1450).{{r|march}} ''[[Kubuswoningen]]'' is known for a set of cubical houses in which its [[hexagon]]al space diagonal becomes the main floor.{{r|an}}

{{multiple image
 | image1 = Cubic.svg
 | caption1 = Simple cubic crystal structure
 | image2 = 2780M-pyrite1.jpg
 | caption2 = [[Pyrite]] cubic crystals
 | image3 = Cubane molecule ball.png
 | caption3 = [[Ball-and-stick model]] of [[cubane]]
 | total_width = 360
}}
Cubes are also found in natural science and technology. It is applied to the [[unit cell]] of a crystal known as a [[cubic crystal system]].{{r|tisza}} [[Pyrite]] is an example of a [[mineral]] with a commonly cubic shape, although there are many varied shapes.{{r|hoffmann}} The [[radiolarian]] ''Lithocubus geometricus'', discovered by [[Ernst Haeckel]], has a cubic shape.{{r|haeckel}} A historical attempt to unify three physics ideas of [[Galilean relativity|relativity]], [[gravitation]], and [[quantum mechanics]] used the framework of a cube known as a [[cGh physics|''cGh'' cube]].{{r|padmanabhan}} [[Cubane]] is a synthetic [[hydrocarbon]] consisting of eight carbon [[atom]]s arranged at the corners of a cube, with one [[hydrogen]] atom attached to each carbon atom.{{r|biegasiewicz}} 
Other technological cubes include the spacecraft device [[CubeSat]],{{r|helvajian}} and [[thermal radiation]] demonstration device [[Leslie cube]].{{r|vm}} Cubical grids are usual in three-dimensional [[Cartesian coordinate system]]s.{{r|knstv}} In [[computer graphics]], [[Marching cubes|an algorithm]] divides the input volume into a discrete set of cubes known as the unit on [[isosurface]],{{r|cmsi}} and the faces of a cube can be used for [[Cube mapping|mapping a shape]].{{r|greene}}

{{multiple image
 | image1 = Kepler Hexahedron Earth.jpg
 | caption1 = Sketch of a cube by Johannes Kepler
 | image2 = Mysterium Cosmographicum solar system model.jpg
 | caption2 = [[Johannes Kepler|Kepler's]] Platonic solid model of the [[Solar System]]
 | align = right
 | total_width = 300
}}
The [[Platonic solid]]s are five polyhedra known since antiquity. The set is named for [[Plato]] who, in his dialogue [[Timaeus (dialogue)|''Timaeus'']], attributed these solids to nature. One of them, the cube, represented the [[classical element]] of [[Earth (classical element)|earth]] because of its stability.{{sfnp|Cromwell|1997|p=[https://archive.org/details/polyhedra0000crom/page/55 55]}} [[Euclid]]'s [[Euclid's Elements|''Elements'']] defined the Platonic solids, including the cube, and showed how to find the ratio of the circumscribed sphere's diameter to the edge length.{{r|heath}} Following Plato's use of the regular polyhedra as symbols of nature, [[Johannes Kepler]] in his ''[[Harmonices Mundi]]'' sketched each of the Platonic solids; he decorated ane side of the cube with a tree.{{sfnp|Cromwell|1997|p=[https://archive.org/details/polyhedra0000crom/page/55 55]}} In his ''[[Mysterium Cosmographicum]]'', Kepler also proposed that the ratios between sizes of the orbits of the planets are the ratios between the sizes of the [[inscribed sphere|inscribed]] and [[circumscribed sphere]]s of the Platonic solids. That is, if the orbits are great circles on spheres, the sphere of Mercury is tangent to a [[regular octahedron]], whose vertices lie on the sphere of Venus, which is in turn tangent to a [[regular icosahedron]], within the sphere of Earth, within a [[regular dodecahedron]], within the sphere of Mars, within a [[regular tetrahedron]], within the sphere of Jupiter, within a cube, within the sphere of Saturn.  In fact the orbits are not circles but ellipses (as Kepler himself later showed), and these relations are only approximate.{{r|livio}}