Imagine a beautiful vase filled with roses on a spring day, by an open window. A sudden gust of wind enters the room, the roses act as a sail, and the vase tumbles from its perch and onto the floor. The shards of that vase are, of course, a chaos of sizes and shapes. However, new research argues that behind the apparent chaos, there is a simple mathematical rule. The rest of this article is behind a paywall. Please sign in or subscribe to access the full content.

Understanding the fragmentation of objects is crucial in material science. Sometimes objects just break due to defects, and others due to external impact. Some materials are designed to shatter in certain ways. The breaking of others informs how to make versions less likely to fall apart. The new research did not focus on the for

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