Under a microscope, a snowflake
looks like an exquisite jewel, cut by the finest, most highly skilled craftsman
out of the purest diamond. Its pattern is intricate, delicate and flawless. Its
surface is clear and smooth and irresistibly touchable. You want to pluck it
right out of the picture and string it on a necklace, hang it from your shirt
and show off its beauty to the world, or just hold it in your hand.
And to think, we have billions
and billions of these amazing little gems fall to our earth every year! They’re
heaped up on the curbs and on the rooftops. They weigh down tree branches and
bury sidewalks. There are untold numbers of them, even in the smallest space.
But what if it were your job to
collect, examine and catalog each and every one of them?
Well? What are you standing
around for? Get going!
Actually, there are people who
make a fascinating study doing just that, believe it or not, and, between them,
they’ve created a collection of some of the most beautiful pictures in the
world.
It all started nearly a hundred
years ago, with a man named Wilson Alwyn Bentley, who also went by the
very suitable nickname of “Snowflake”. The story goes that when he was a kid,
his mother gave him an old microscope. He started studying all kinds of stuff
under it, but the thing that caught his eye, was the magnificent, miniscule
snowflake.
He
simply had to record these visions so he could share them with others, but
attempts at drawing them were futile. He couldn’t do it fast enough. No one
could. Snowflakes are what scientists call “sublime”, meaning they phase from a
solid state directly to a gaseous state, skipping the liquid state altogether.
In other words, they vanish really quickly.
That’s
how Wilson came to be standing over a microscope with a camera on hand trying
to photograph snow.
It took
some experimentation, and some trial and error, but he did it. Wilson developed
and perfected a method creating breathtaking close-up photos of these jewels
that many others of us may never otherwise have the chance to see. This was his
gift to the world.
In his
lifetime, he produced over 5000 of these stunning photographs, and the thing
is, no two of them are exactly alike. That’s where we get the long-held notion
that no two snowflakes are exactly alike. Wilson even wrote an article, once,
arguing that point. Clearly, there are an incredible number of different pattern
configurations in that snow bank out there, but, as amazing as Wilson’s
accomplishments were, that’s still only 5000 snowflakes out of billions and
billions. So how can we possibly know that no two snowflakes are alike?
Well,
the truth is we can’t. Not really. But the beautiful patterns the snowflakes
take on are created by the various temperatures and conditions the snow
crystals experience on their way to the earth. Each snowflake’s design depends
upon its individual path from cloud to ground. Since it’s highly unlikely that
two different snowflakes could follow the precise same path, it would be
extremely rare to find two identical flakes.
In
recent years, however, someone has claimed to have beaten those odds and found
the elusive matching flakes.
Anyway,
it’s been more than a century since Wilson celebrated his first successful
snowflake photo, and since then, photography equipment has made some huge
advances, allowing for even more breath-taking photography. Check out this
article full of amazing and unbelievable photos.
Here’s
a little snowflake trivia for you. Did you know that snow isn’t really white?
It just looks like that because of the way the light reflects off the myriad
sides of the complex little crystals. Actually, snow is as clear as glass.
So,
enjoy the winter, and the next time you’re tempted to complain about the
back-break of clearing your walk, think about all those miraculous little
beauties on the end of your shovel.
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