Snowflakes
Added on December 15th, 2009 by TheLotusEater725 | Report Post
Tags:Awesome Things, Nature, Wallpaper
Tags:Awesome Things, Nature, Wallpaper
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11 Responses ttto Snowflakes
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having a hard time believing 5th one down is a snowflake.
Frozen rain or sleet, maybe?
That’s crystals for you, nate.
they’re not unique. I’vve sen the second one down loads of times.
Is this gay snowflake porn?
No two are alike – start your collection today!
Here’s a question that I’ll probably get pn’d on… How (and or why ) do snow flakes grow in geometric fractals …. how does one water molecule “know” how to place itself so that it’ll be in proportion to it’s opposite/counterpart ? And to the first Arsehole that say’s is part of dog’s divine plan/mystery (or any other pseudo theological-science) : you will now and forever have all internets stripped from you.
The six-fold symmetry of a snow crystal ultimately derives from the hexagonal geometry of the ice crystal lattice. But the lattice has molecular dimensions, so it’s not trivial how this nano-scale symmetry is transferred to the structure of a large snow crystal.
The way it works is through faceting. No long-range forces are necessary to form facets; they appear simply because of how the molecules hook up locally in the lattice (see Crystal Faceting for how this works). From faceting we get hexagonal prisms, which are large structures with six-fold symmetry. Eventually arms sprout from the corners of a prism, and six corners means six arms.
Faceting is how the geometry of the water molecule is transferred to the geometry of a large snow crystal.
Thank you! I’ve been wondering this myself and have been too lazy to wiki it up.
Snowflake in a hot world
Don’t let them get to you
Don’t let them tell you
You’re all the same
Snowflake in a hot world
Light inside the dark
You lonely little spark
Too frozen to feel
So fleeting and so real
…Mercury Rev
Yay ice – pretty crystals of nature.