Normals - Adding an edge loop improves smooth shading Searched for an answer but could not find one.

In the image I have 2 cubes. One has loop cuts and with shade smooth it looks much better.

Looking at the normal direction then both cubes are the same. Does the one with the additional cuts work better because the surface area of the faces is smaller at the 90 degree edge?

thank you
By smoothing normal direction is overriding by 'fake' normals which interpolated from surface area between edges.

There are detailed answered questions, one of them How to smooth shade an object while retaining hard edges?


And a little bit of theory Normals, Vertex Normals and Facing Ratio