This is a grain of salt, photographed with my new microscope. Why are grains of salt cube-shaped?
Answer:
Salt breaks with cubic cleavage. That means that if you take a chunk of salt and hit it with a hammer, the pieces will probably be cubes. If you take a piece of rock salt and break it, you will get smaller cubes. If you take those cubes and break them, you will get even smaller cubes. If you use a microscope, even the tiny bits of powder you get from crushing a grain of salt will be tiny cubes.
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