Snowflake Doppelganger

about the collective power of the ice crystals within. I just look at the the effect of the collective and how beautiful it is. Yeah, the most you're probably gonna say, look at all that snow. You're not gonna say, look at those snow flakes. Imagine how many there are. Imagine how many little bits of crystallized water have contributed to this, uh,

this overall picture before us. Yeah, particularly if you're in the Midwest right now and you're getting a bunch of snow dumped on you and you have to shovel all that, you're probably not thinking about the majesty of these tiny little geometric crystal kingdoms within. Yeah, you're not celebrating the snowflake.

I feel like, yeah, here here in the South. I've always lived in places where there's snow, but definitely in the South and like Tennessee and Georgia, I've lived in places where the snow is rare enough to where you can get excited about it when it's not there and also make little cardboard snowflakes that end up going on the you know, the kindergarten wall. Yeah, I mean it's something you're right in the South. It's like, you know,

whenever snowflake comes tumbling down from the sky. But we're going to take this sort of powers of ten approach today. We're gonna try to get um from the macro to the micro and really get into snowflakes and whether or not they are unique each snowflake, Is it unique? And what if anything it has to do with ripparologists and all sorts of other things. All Right, so it begs a question what is a snowflake? Again, It's easy to take it for granted, to forget there there or did

not think about them at all. It's just this funny, little beautiful shape that falls from the sky and it's made out of ice, and it piles up and forms a lot of snow. But but but when you stop and ask yourself, how does it form, Well, it's a little more complicated. Then it all begins with a little tiny speck of dust. Yeah, this is a possible hexagon based scenario. I mean, first, you have to have temperatures at thirty two degrees fahrenheit or lower in a cloud

for water vapor to attach to that little dust grain. Yeah. That's also known as a condensation nuclei because this is going to form the heart of everything that grows out from it, Yeah, which then crystallizes into ice. And once it does this, a prism forms with six faces and

a top in the bottom. And if you guys can sort of imagine all that in your brain, You've got the top and the bottom and each has a side, six sides right, and a cavity forms in each prism face where ice grows fastest, and then six branches sprout, forming that hexagon. Now, where it's going to go from there depends again on the conditions in that cloud, because the vapor content is really important in terms of how that snowflake might grow. In size, in shape, and also

again the climate. So if it if you know, things get warm, then you get a different shape from that ice crystal. But if things freeze up, like say high altitude sears cloud might produce, then you get that doily effect that really intricate beautiful snowflake falling down. Yeah, I was reading about when they when they fall through the warmer air, their slower growth. But there's a there's a

there's widening that occurs. So and as we've discussed before, I mean, you can even have red snow in some cases, this blood snow that is that has been seen to fall uh in various places throughout history. The idea being here that little speck of dust at the center of it all is red in color and therefore dictate the overall color of the snow. That would be just wonderful to have, like red snowflakes, wouldn't it be terrifying? But red Christmas? Yeah, I'm dreaming bloody Christmas. All right. So

here's the thing. A tiny snowflake could actually affect the climate. Not on a huge scale here, but Hands Berlin, Associate Professor of Meteeralogy at Penn State, says that quote serious clouds are known to play a large role in energy budget enhanced climate. The molecular level processes determine the shape of the ice crystals, which then determine the characteristics of the clouds themselves, which control the radiative properties of clouds and the role of serrus in climate. Yeah, I mean,

it's the And these guys should know. They have an awesome job. They're snowflake designers. They use the Penn State cloud chamber to to explore ice crystal growth in a in this environment that's designed to mimic the conditions that are similar to serious cloud environments. Yeah, and as she said that the actual cloud chamber and they inject you know, a little bit of vapor and there, and it's fascinating

to watch. Now, you know, the idea that little something is insignificant seeming as a as a snow crystal could and lead to fast changes in effect climate. It's interesting because it's you know, very much that idea of the

butterfly effect. And of course the butterfly effect has its heart in chaos theory, which actually stems for meteorology and trying to figure out what is going to happen with the weather at any given time, and as we look into the future, there's so many factors in in our in our weather, in our climate, in our atmosphere, and the smallest thing does having enormous repercussions. Yeah, as the butterfly wings in this butterfly effect theory would dictate. Right,

at least that's the idea behind it. But what we really want to get to is is the snowflake unique? Does it have a doppel gang or does it have a double out there? When we hear about this all the time, each snowflake is unique and beautiful. Yeah, it's it's something we we hear growing up because the the obvious analogy to grow to draw there is not only is the snowflake unique and beautiful, but you are unique

and beautiful. You are one of a kind. You, darling child, are unique and beautiful and there's no one else on this world like you. And as we grow older, we kind of realized that, yes, that is true, but it's not as true as your your mom may have made it out to be when you were younger. You're like, I I am distinctive, I am unique, but I might

be a type. Yeah, if you've ever auditioned for for any kind of an acting gig, or really, if you if you've ever uh you know, gone after any job and uh and and had a glimpse of the other people going for the position, then you begin to realize, all right, I may be a unique snowflake, but there are similar snowflakes, and they are my enemies, right, and I'm sure that other snowflakes look at each other like that. Um. But yeah, on a molecular level, a snowflake, Verlin says,

could be unique. And he says, let's be specific here and define a snowflake first of all as a single vapor grim crystal. And then he says that he would say with a great deal of confidence that all crystals are different on this molecular level purely because there are different, says, in the atomic structure of the atoms making up the water molecule, and hence in the water molecules themselves. Yeah, yeah,

very basic level. And it's it's the same as the fact that me and the other person going after the same job we're composed of different atoms, where we're different things on a very physical, uh molecular level. But visually Verylin would say no, because there are only so many types of snowflakes out there or shapes. Yeah, and especially the case when you look at snowflakes in the early

stages of their development. The earlier the snowflake is, the younger the snowflake is, the more possibility that you're gonna have repetition. And then as the snowflake develops over time, you know, imagine again the branching occurring, and the and the changes occurring as it goes through these the varying degrees of heat and cold. As time passes, there's less likelihood that you're gonna have deuvils. But there but but still, they're gonna have snowflakes that look a lot alike, at

least to the macro level. Right, You're not gonna have pentagon an octagon shaped snowflakes. First of all. Let's just get that. Ever cut one of those out in a class school project, it's a complete lie. Does don't exist? Yeah, pretty, but don't exist. Um, And you will probably have the hexagon, right,

that's pretty much like the bass structure here. And there are triangular snowflakes, and most people think about those is more like trying to find a four leaf clover, but they turned out to be more common than we thought. In the study Aerodynamic Stability and the Growth of Triangular snow Crystals, co authors Kenneth Librect and Hannah Arnold described the process as tiny impurities such as dust particles, can cause one edge of the falling snowflake to tilt up

as it falls. The snowflakes sides that are pointed down grow faster as the wind blows by, leading to a stable triangular pattern which remains triangular despite any later bumps as it falls, which is kind of fascinating a little bit of aerodynamics going on here. We were looking at some of the various shapes that these snowflakes take on on and it's it's it's really a rich and very uh the world of of snowflakes that we often take completely for granted. I mean, because at heart we're talking

about crystal formation. And like in the world of crystals, there's the human idea of crystals, the crystals that humans carve naturally occurring crystals into so they can put it on a ring or pinan or whatever, and then there is that the rich world of actual crystal formation, which, if you know, start doing a Google image search, you just go down the rabbit hole at all these different forms. And the same can be said at the snowflakes you see.

I mean some of them look more like like you're looking at a bacteria or something, or some sort of strange um tip for a medical device. Yeah, machine parts. I love these. Most people think about their radiating dendrites. Those are the ones that have the six branches with tiny little branches coming off of it. But there are some amazing things like the scrolls on plates is a type of snowflake, and within that you see all sorts

of different variations. And then you see the piling on of ice crystals, like the apped columns kind of look like a I guess you like a bolt. And if you look at like those big those big spools that good wire comes on and that sometimes becomes a coffee table and bachelors. My parents had one of this. But yeah, you will see if you look under an electron microscope, you will see the ice crystals on top of that six sided plate on the very top, and it's just amazing.

They really are these crystal kingdoms of ice. Yeah, the there's one that particular shape called capped bullets that if you if you created this or drew this in you know, like a second grade classroom, and called it a snowflake, I have a feeling a lot of teachers would give you an f. But because it looks like three crystal shards joined at the point it does, it doesn't even look real, you know. But but at the at the at the micro level, this is how crystals formed together.

This is one of the many structures they can take on. Yeah, and we'll try to um to post on this so that you guys have a vision a little reference to this. But if you wanted to look cut up, you could just say electron microscopes snowflakes and you will see just amazing imagery of this stuff. All Right, we're gonna break and when we come back, more snowflakes. All right, we're back,

And I should point out that designer snowflakes are possible. Uh. Cal Tech researchers have created flakes in the laboratory using electric needles placed in a diffusion chamber. In this good situation, the crystals grow on the needle's tip, and by altering the conditions of scientists are able to create different sizes and patterns of snowflakes, some uh, perhaps unnatural shapes for snowflakes. I mean, that's got to be one of the best jobs ever then and just yeah, I make I make snowflakes.

That yeah. And and again, as we discussed earlier, when we're talking about pen States cloud chamber. Um, when by studying crystal formations in snowflakes, I mean we're we're getting down to some of the fine details of the overwhelming movements of climate. That's right, all these tiny little things that make up climate. And we will discuss this in a bit. There's also this idea that snowflakes can inform us about the universe. But first we have got to

talk about what snowflakes have to do with rip parologists. Yes, now, this is this is pretty fabulous stuff. And this idea comes to us from Alan Moore, who who wrote the amazing graphic novel from Hell Uh all black and white, big thick graphic novel about the Ripper murders, and it's it's really a great work of literature. If you haven't read it, uh, it deals with a lot of feminist issues.

It deals with some of the grizzly details of the case, and in the epilogue, Alan Moore talks about the idea of the the Cox snowflake to illustrate his point about ripparologists. That's right. He compares the multitude of increasingly outland ripper theories to what is known as a cock snowflake, or a finite fixed location event and error. In this case, London late can have an infinite number of nooks and crannies. Yeah. So with the with the actual fractal idea of the

cock snowflake, this is what happens. You start with a triangle and then you remove the inner third of each side, building another triangle at the location where the side was removed. So now you have a star instead of a kind of like a star of David exactly. Yeah, and then you repeat this process indefinitely. The snowflake does not grow in size, but it grows in complexity. So Moore's point in all of this is that there's only so much

about the Ripper murders that we know. There's only so much at this point that we will ever know for sure. I mean, unless we actually develop a means of traveling back in time and spying on what happened. Uh, that's not going to happen, so that there's a set amount of information. So the Ripper story as we know it will never expand beyond a certain threshold, but the complexity

that we throw at it, that that can grow. So so the idea is that there are only so many facts that we have, and ripparologists those you know, they're obsessed with figuring out exactly who did it, why they did it, what kind of complex plots were involved, the d crafting intricate theory after theory, while our actual knowledge on the incident never expands beyond it, beyond what is currently known. I was just thinking about that in terms of conspiracy theory in general, and I was thinking about

big folts. We recently talked about Yetti and Bigfoot. In the idea there is patterns, right, and seeing patterns, and we've talked about this whole lot with cognitive bias and all sorts of conspiracy theorists. But the overlaying of patterns and the symmetry in the in the cock snowflake, this fractal.

But again, what you're doing is, you know, every time you put on another equal lateral triangle, it yields another space, and it's an infinite perimeter to just begin into putting on that same pattern right, that layering of that same equilateral triangle. So it's interesting, and I just want to point out to that the Cox snowflake is actually named after Swedish mathematician and his name is Niels Fabian von

Koch who identified one of the earliest NEWN fractals. Here. Yeah, it's a ko c H if you want to check that out. Um. Now, you're probably listening to that, and you're you're thinking, well that you're also talking about a creative process here. You sort of you have a set amount of information and then you're just plowing forward with all this complexity and making the existing information more and more complex in the way it relates to each other.

And indeed you will find snowflake novel writing methods out there on the internet, which I've always found interesting. I haven't really ever tried to employ one, but I like the idea. And the idea is you start with a simple idea. You start with your your basic outline, you know you're and then you expand it, you create a

snowflake out of it. Um. You know, you can think of various novels that sort of occupy the same space that if very basic level, I mean, how many fantasy, epic fantasy novels sound more or less the same, how many detective novels sound more or less the same. And to a certain extent, it's all been done before, right where it where stuff differentiates from the next book and the next book is in the details, is in the

the the the intricate nature of the snowflake. Even if our existing literature and it is really only only gonna occupy the same space, It's not going to expand beyond

its current threshold. Well, you know, as a fiction writer who comes to the blank page with a cacophony of ideas, I find that really seductive, this idea that you just create this triangle, this simple triangle of the plot, and then you begin to just fill it out from there, and that way you can sort of tame some of the ideas, some of the thoughts and the characters that are running around in your head. Yeah, you know, it brings me back to the whole idea, right, what you know? Right,

so there's a fixed amount of what I know. It comes down to how you implement what you know and how you how you range it on the page and how you create this snowflake. Uh, just to go off on a tangent here for a second, I was thinking about this. I was thinking, I wonder if you can weave neuroscience into an actual writing class. And the reason is is because as readers, we have all sorts of neurons firing right mirror neurons as we read on the

page what the character is doing. So if the character is weeping or playing baseball, then there are certain things going on our heads that are connecting with that. And I was thinking that one of the reasons why some characters work in some don't is because they seem like caricatures and we can't relate to them because it doesn't

feel real. It's outside of the writer's experience perhaps when they're trying to render that character that's snowflake, so it's you know, it would be nice to see if some of the world of science could inform fiction writing. That would be interesting, That would be interesting. Shower thoughts by

Julie Douglas. But anyway, let's get back to this, because I think the interesting idea that um that you could have this pattern making and in the sense of ripparologists or conspiracy theories in the Coke snowflake, you'd always have uncertainty no matter how much you layered it on. Yeah, I mean, that's the remarkable thing about it is that again we'll never be able to say with accuracy this is what happened, and this is this is who is involved? Uh we but we just keep learing on the the

complexity of our theories. I mean, you see a similar thing with the assassination of jfk uh. We have the facts, we have them arranged, and then we cannot help but continue to go back and try and create a more complex idea of what happened. Um. In large part I believe is William Manchester room of this argument pointed out that all right, we were pretty much know Oswald killed Kennedy, like the end that it was just a lone gunman situation.

But when you compare the two, when you put them on the scale, you have such a an insignificant and easily person as Oswald on this level, and then you have a figure like Kennedy on the other. They don't balance out you and you would have to plut you would have to throw more complexity onto the Oswald side of the scale. To even things out to where it kind of makes sense in a more epic sense of

the word, and then you're just further down the rabbit hole. Right. Yeah, I want to make this sort of thread through snowflakes and zen and joy, and I don't know if we'll be able to fully get at this idea, but I did think one of the things about snowflakes is that when you pay attention to them, you really are paying attention to the details of the world. You're slowing things down.

And we talked about this when we were discussing labyrinths and many other topics, that you're it's a meditative process and you're seeing things as they are as opposed to that blueprint in your mind, just creating memory for you

and you know, creating your reality. Yeah, that's what I like about this idea about snowflakes is particularly the electron microscope when you're looking at them, because you really get to see all of those nooks and crannies and that that that snowflake, it is such an ephemeral object because it's gone in seconds. Well you know, it gets frozen into the uh, into a snowdrift, and then it's molecularly

changed anyway. Yeah, it's been in a state of change its entire existence, and then it is and then it changes again into into mire water. And so I thought, this is really a good example of perhaps something called joy, one of these emotions, uh that we try to figure out and and categorize. And Zadie Smith, she's a writer. She has a really great essay on joy, and she goes through and she makes the distinction between pleasure and joy.

She's a pleasure is like you know, eating a popsicle on a hot day and avoiding my work for seven minutes while I eat the popsicle. And Joy is my child who is a pleasure. Um, she says, though mostly she's a joy, which means, in fact, she gives us not much pleasure at all, but rather that strange admixture of terror pain into light that have come to recognize as joy and now must find some way to live

with daily. And I thought, that is that is a in a sense of snowflake, because that's it's it's going to be gone. And anyway, she goes on and on about joy and parenting and uh, just the the existence of life. Really that that is a beautiful way of looking at it, and I can certainly relate to that, having recently become a parent myself, that parenting is not a a seven minute experience with a popsicle. It is. It's more in keeping how she framed it there as a as an as an overall joy, but but in

the individual moment, uh, maybe not so pleasurable. Yeah, terrifying and beautiful and terrifying for the reasons because it is, as we all know, life on Earth is temporary existence and sort of uh underscores that point force a lot, just like a snowflake melting in the sun. Um. But I think that what's interesting again about snowflakes is that they do allow us to go macro and micro. And if you wanted to go macro on this, all you

would have to do is look at the galaxies. And one guy by the name of Professor Duncan Forbes who says that galaxy formation is very similar to snowflake formation. Yeah, it comes. I mean a lot of it comes down to the basic idea of accretion, which we've talked about before, when we've talked about the formation of planets and stars and solar systems and you know, on up to the galaxies.

When you have just a very small, a little bit of a bit of matter, and it's the exerting gravitational force, it draws in another bit of matter, and then the graviltational force grows and grows. It's like a snowball going down a hill. It eventually gets bigger and bigger, draws in more matter from the surrounding area, and that's how you end up with a planet or a star or

in these larger cases, um galaxies. Um starts out very small and than the galaxies, uh, than seed in this constant stream of other stars, other regions of other you know, vast tracts of of gas. Yeah, so these giants, I mean, they're being formed. But essentially it's the same process as a snowflake that has that seed, and then it grows the water vapor, and then that water vapor accumulates on the surface of snowflake, and so on and so forth.

It's kind of a lovely thought to think that that snowflake has very much a lot of in common with this infinite universe idea. Yeah, snowflakes of the gods, if you will, I love that. If we could right now, we would just say, and happy holidays everyone, and then and whatever wherever place you are, in your car, in your room, at home, on the train commuting, snowflakes would fall down gently upon your head. Indeed, but I'm going to read a quote from Corn McCarthy, so so that

that'll kind of deaden some of the joy. But still it's a beautiful quote. This is from the Border trilogy, um and this is one speaker up, an individual speaking to another character. He says, snowflake, You catch the snowflake, but when you look in your hands, you don't have it no more. Maybe you see this the shadow, this pattern, but before you see it's gone. If you want to see it, you have to see it on its own ground.

If you catch it, you lose it. And where it goes there is no coming back from not even God can bring it back. Happy holidays. Have I have a nice CORNL. McCarthy Christmas, everybody, as you as you ruminate on that, but but also yeah, as you look if you were fortunate enough to experience a white Christmas, a pleasantly white Christmas, not a not one that is, you know, turning your area into a frigid waste land. But you get to look out on the snow. Think about those

little snowflakes. Think about that tiny, intricate design and how it all spirals out from their affecting climate. And look up into the sky and think about these, uh, these stars, these planets that have formed and are you can continue to form and uh and the galactic formations that, in their own way are much the snowflake. Indeed, And if you want to check out some more of what we're doing out there on the Internet, you can do so at Stuff to Blow your Mind. Yes, Stuff to Blow

your Mind dot com. You can also check us out on social media. We're on tumbler one, on Twitter, We're on Facebook, We're on Google Plus, um and uh. You can also find us on YouTube where remind Stuff show and Julie. Where else can they find us? Well, they can send an email to blow the mind at discovery dot com for more on this and thousands of other topics because it how stuff works dot com. Audible dot com is the leading provider of downloadable digital audio books

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