Individuality
You know the old saying that "no two snowflakes are alike"? Well it may be possible for two snowflakes to be alike after all. There's a fascinating article in LiveScience that details how this may be possible.
For anyone who studies probability, this seems reasonable, given that the article mentions that 10^24 snowflakes fall in any given year. The article also contains a photo gallery of fascinating snowflake pictures like the one shown above.
From the article: "A typical snow crystal weighs roughly one millionth of a gram. This means a cubic foot of snow can contain roughly one billion crystals ... It is probably safe to say that the possible number of snow crystal shapes exceeds the estimated number of atoms in the known universe."
Kenneth Libbrecht, a professor of physics at California Institute of Technology runs a website devoted entirely to Snow Crystals at www.snowcrystals.com which is also visually impressive.
Here's an interesting graphic on the formation of Snow Crystals:
Comments
in England where i live I've seen snow flakes in the millions. Is it true no snowflake is the same?
Posted by: Maria | September 11, 2007 09:09 PM
This has bugged me for quite awhile. Why does the shell and "skin" stick to some hard boiled eggs making them almost impossible to peel and not to others? I have tried looking at possible variables like water level, time taken /heat level to achieve boil, etc, but it remains a crap shoot. Any hints would be appreciated.
Posted by: Fay | November 15, 2007 09:01 AM
It has to do with the age of the egg. A fresher egg is very hard to peel. an older egg is easy. I think the skin thins as it ages. I don't know the science behind it.
Posted by: Susan | December 18, 2007 11:32 AM