For centuries now, particles of matter have invariably been depicted as globules. These globules, representing very different entities of distant orders of magnitudes, have in turn been used as pictorial building blocks for a host of more complex structures such as atomic nuclei, molecules, crystals, gases, material surfaces, electrical currents or the double helixes of DNA. Maybe it is because of the unsurpassable simplicity of the spherical form that the ubiquity of this type of representation appears to us so deceitfully self-explanatory. But in truth, the spherical shape of these various units of matter deserves nothing if not raised eyebrows.
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