Through the looking glass: Snow Day!

Oh glorious snow days; one of the best things ever when you're a kid (and an adult)! I loved snow days as a kid. One that sticks out in my mind was when I was about five or six. We lived next door to artists and when we went out to play we found them out in their yard working on snowmen. They worked throughout the day, sculpting with joy and we were treated to beautiful snow statues by the end of the day.

Last night it started snowing, the first snow since December 2017 and we woke up to a winter wonderland and a phone call from the school district (at 4:40 am!) that school was cancelled. We spent the morning playing board games, creating a make-shift sled, and then headed out to the school a few houses down to try it out (not very successfully). We came back home, made a fire and thawed our fingers and toes. This afternoon Stazy and I headed back out with our cameras ready to capture some winter inspiration.

We wandered around our yard, the school field, and the beaver pond until our hands were frozen. At one point Stazy called me over frantically. She was in awe of a snowflake she could see sticking out. She could make out the intricate pattern and was completely amazed at both the beauty and the fact that it was one-of-a-kind. "But how is it possible?." she asked. I thought it was a great question, so we decided to investigate.

It turns out that it is true that each snowflake is unique on a molecular level. However, snowflakes can be similar and each falls into one of 35 different shapes. The shape is determined by how it is formed and environmental factors like temperature and humidity.

A snowflake is formed when an extremely cold drop of water binds onto a piece of pollen or dust particle, creating an ice crystal. During the process of crystallization the water molecules arranges themselves to maximize the attractive forces and minimize the repulsive ones. This arranging results in the snowflakes symmetry and hexagonal shape.

The way that the shape forms depends on temperature and humidity, with temperature being the most influential of the two. Temperature determines the basic shape. Colder temperatures create simple crystal plate and column structures and warmer temperatures form intricate branching patterns. Humidity effects the complexity of the pattern with higher humidity increasing the complexity.

As the snowflake falls down it goes through changes in temperature and humidity and evolves with each permutation. Because the changes in temperature and humidity occur over a large area compared with the size of the snowflake, all parts of the snowflake are similarly affected, adding to its symmetry. So it really is true, each snowflake is one-of-a-kind.

Later on as we were wandering around the beaver pond she brought it back up again, wondering about the endlessness of all the possibilities (she's been thinking a lot about infinity lately). As she stood there thinking, she turned to me and said, "but mom, there must be something beyond infinity." I started to answer, and then realized I had no idea where to begin. We'll have to save this topic for another blog entry.

You can check out Stazy's photos below. Her's are the first five.