Reading this article made my day. It would be an extraordinary story if Mr. Bentley made the effort to photograph 5,000 snowflakes today. It's almost incomprehensible that he had the wherewithal to do that in his time in the late 1800's/early 1900's given the process necessary to develop *any* photograph, let alone something as fragile and fleeting as a snowflake! I can only imagine the thrill he experienced upon capturing the first image that would motivate him to continue on.
[I wonder if computer games and other forms of entertainment providing instant gratification had been invented, if the fifteen-year old Wilson Bentley would have been occupying himself with an old microscope in the first place; I wonder if he carried around a cell phone if he would have been outside one snowy day, his face downward, but his nose not in a screen but observing a snowflake caught on his mitten.]
A final note. To the reader below who tried to throw cold water on this heartwarming story, I have two things to say. First, I suggest that she read The Old Farmer's ÃÛÌÒÁµÈË article "A GUIDE TO SNOWFLAKES: NO TWO ALIKE?" to gain a general understanding of why snowflakes have the shapes they do. The odds in which a quintillion+ water molecules can be formed into six-sided crystals is astronomically high, creating *very high odds* that no two snowflakes are alike - so high it could certainly be said, "in effect" no two snowflakes are alike. But hang on. That's sort of theoretic. Put the subject into a search bar for more technical explanations of snow crystal formation, and the situation gets "curiouser and curiouser"
Given the reality of an infinite number of (microscopic and macroscopic) conditions under which a snow crystal can be formed, each nuance of difference creating a slightly different structure, if only infinitesimally so, it appears that if you looked closely enough, each snowflake would actually be unique.Â
However, secondly, if we merely observe that the reader's comment "You can't prove a negative" is itself a negative, then assuming her logic holds true, her own statement cannot be proven. (How she gets away with throwing about unproven statements as if fact, I don't know! :D) In any event, we can properly refocus attention on the tenacity of a curious teenager and the beauty of the ephemeral snowflake he was able to capture and spent his lifetime sharing with the rest of us. Â
Reading this article made my day. It would be an extraordinary story if Mr. Bentley made the effort to photograph 5,000 snowflakes today. It's almost incomprehensible that he had the wherewithal to do that in his time in the late 1800's/early 1900's given the process necessary to develop *any* photograph, let alone something as fragile and fleeting as a snowflake! I can only imagine the thrill he experienced upon capturing the first image that would motivate him to continue on.
[I wonder if computer games and other forms of entertainment providing instant gratification had been invented, if the fifteen-year old Wilson Bentley would have been occupying himself with an old microscope in the first place; I wonder if he carried around a cell phone if he would have been outside one snowy day, his face downward, but his nose not in a screen but observing a snowflake caught on his mitten.]
A final note. To the reader below who tried to throw cold water on this heartwarming story, I have two things to say. First, I suggest that she read The Old Farmer's ÃÛÌÒÁµÈË article "A GUIDE TO SNOWFLAKES: NO TWO ALIKE?" to gain a general understanding of why snowflakes have the shapes they do. The odds in which a quintillion+ water molecules can be formed into six-sided crystals is astronomically high, creating *very high odds* that no two snowflakes are alike - so high it could certainly be said, "in effect" no two snowflakes are alike. But hang on. That's sort of theoretic. Put the subject into a search bar for more technical explanations of snow crystal formation, and the situation gets "curiouser and curiouser"
Given the reality of an infinite number of (microscopic and macroscopic) conditions under which a snow crystal can be formed, each nuance of difference creating a slightly different structure, if only infinitesimally so, it appears that if you looked closely enough, each snowflake would actually be unique.Â
However, secondly, if we merely observe that the reader's comment "You can't prove a negative" is itself a negative, then assuming her logic holds true, her own statement cannot be proven. (How she gets away with throwing about unproven statements as if fact, I don't know! :D) In any event, we can properly refocus attention on the tenacity of a curious teenager and the beauty of the ephemeral snowflake he was able to capture and spent his lifetime sharing with the rest of us. Â