Apex Travelling in Different Directions

Three geometric piles of salt, silicon rock, and quartzite are situated in the gallery. Their orderly forms are not the result of any sculpting by hand or tool. In fact, these pyramids and cones are naturally formed: an inherent geometrical order manifests itself macroscopically in grains of salt, silicon rock, and quartzite. When poured, their granular structures always arrange into piles of certain angles – their ‘angle of repose’. For salt this is 32 degrees, for silicon rock 40, and for quartzite 35. As the grains slowly accumulate on top of one another, the material flows and collects, until each granule comes to a halt at the angle of repose. If too much material is poured onto the slope, it will flow via a self-assembling avalanche until an angle of inactivity is again established.