心存善念2022-01-15 01:34:40

What's Wrong With This Snowflake?

 

During the holiday season we see images of lots of stuff not found in nature: flying reindeer, sugarplum fairies, and geometrically incorrect snowflakes. Now, Thomas Koop, a chemist, is trying to fix the snowflake problem.

 

Koop thinks ice crystals are masterpieces of natural beauty. Unfortunately, he says, "This beauty is sometimes corrupted."

 

Especially at this time of year, when a blizzard of artistically rendered snowflake images sweeps through advertisements and store displays and greeting cards. Koop, who is a professor at Bielefeld University in Germany, says the problem is that many of these images show ice crystals with five sides, or eight sides. In other words, he says, they are scientific abominations.

 

"Since I'm a chemist I know what the crystal structure of ice typically is and therefore I know that there's no way of having pentagonal or octagonal ice crystals and therefore such snow crystals shouldn't exist in nature and they don't," says Koop.

 

Snowflakes can assemble ice crystals into all kinds of complex shapes. But the crystals themselves will usually have six sides.

 

 

"The reason is because the molecular building blocks are water molecules. So there is only a certain way they can fit together and what comes out is that they are always in a six-cornered shape, even at the tiniest molecular scale," he says.

 

Actually, water molecules occasionally form ice crystals with three or 12 sides — either half or double the usual number — but never five or eight.

 

(NPR.com)

妖妖灵2022-01-15 01:44:22
LinMu的诗是七瓣:)
心存善念2022-01-15 01:45:37
所以要科普,要不被诗人带歪了 :))
移花接木2022-01-15 01:57:43
我想他是要表达一种很难甚至觉得不可能实现的奢望,就像太阳从西边出来的。。。。。
心存善念2022-01-15 02:04:05
理解诗人可言所欲言 :))
心存善念2022-01-15 02:06:13
花帅还是来译古诗吧,只有钱塘潮,没有七瓣雪:))
妖妖灵2022-01-15 02:08:40
对,是一种超现实的浪漫的愿望:)
心存善念2022-01-15 02:11:15
诗人可乱说,医生不可以 :)
心存善念2022-01-15 02:11:45
人命关天 :)
CLary2022-01-15 02:52:52
My friend took photos of snow flakes.
CLary2022-01-15 02:53:33
Another one
心存善念2022-01-15 02:56:35
so delicate
心存善念2022-01-15 02:58:00
那个完整的象是印在衣服上的
妖妖灵2022-01-15 03:01:40
It is so perfect that it looks like a fake one:)
CLary2022-01-15 03:02:38
是的,在朋友圈里看到的,很震惊这么清晰
CLary2022-01-15 03:03:17
Yes, too vivid to be true:)
移花接木2022-01-15 03:34:43
左边有一个象 束或東 字
CLary2022-01-15 03:45:38
是有点像,
AP339122022-01-15 14:42:00
Art from above and beyond , 雪花??照的接近移花照的。
CLary2022-01-15 15:22:02
嗯,新鲜出炉的雪花:)
梅雨潭2022-01-16 00:45:24
恭喜善念。首页进来,谢谢网管,科普一下雪花小常识 推荐成功
Zhuzitaba2022-01-16 03:46:19
雪花可能不是纯化合物
心存善念2022-01-16 04:52:51
谢谢谢谢!
chaoshou2022-01-16 14:52:08
我每年都照雪花
妖妖灵2022-01-16 23:25:41
欢迎chaoshou来美坛玩!哇,冰清玉洁的雪花,breathtaking!欢迎加一些英文发主帖,让更多人看到!