Simple cubic might in fact be the closest — and thus energetically favoured — packing possible for the new arrangement: whereas for spheres, the space-filling factor of 74% for f.c.c. or ...

The result is not a simple shape (like the face-centered cubic packing that spheres exhibit). Instead, a complex quasicrystal emerges from the disorder—a result that shocked all involved.

For truncated cubes, the densest packing is only subtly different from the simple cubic lattice and their packing fractions differ by only 0.7%.