The website for schoolchildren and their parents Zateevo.ru found out that identical snowflakes can not be!
S N E ZH I N K I
ON
PHOTOS BY YAROSLAV GNATIUK!
There is nothing more weightless than tiny snowflakes. If it falls on your hand, you won’t feel it!
They weigh about a milligram, rarely - 2...3 milligrams.
People rarely look at snowflakes, but no two snowflakes are exactly alike. The best collections of microphotographs contain more than 5 thousand photographs of snowflakes that are different from each other.
ZATEEVO presents a collection of snowflakes by Ukrainian photographer Yaroslav Yuryevich Gnatyuk. Yaroslav Gnatyuk lives and works in Dnepropetrovsk, his work is related to banking payment systems, and microphotography is a hobby. But his photographs are so professional that this year he became the winner of the Yandex photo competition.
Why are all snowflakes so different?
At first, all snowflake embryos look like tiny ones. hexagonal prisms. Then, completely identical ice needles—lateral shoots—begin to grow from the six corners of the prism. The needles are identical because the temperature and humidity around the embryo are also the same. On them, in turn, lateral shoots—twigs—grow, like on a tree. The snowflake begins to rapidly increase in size. At the same time, the convex areas of the snowflake grow faster. Thus, a six-rayed star grows from an initially hexagonal plate. Moving up and down in the cloud, the snowflake finds itself in conditions with different temperatures and water vapor content. Its shape changes. This is how snowflakes become different. Although in the same cloud at the same height they can “emerge” identical. Each snowflake has its own path to the ground. This means that each has its own final form. Snowflakes fall at a speed of approximately 15 meters per minute. They are almost not connected to each other, and even a small wind of 2 meters per second sets them in motion. In the air, the shape of snowflakes is constantly changing. The formation and growth of snowflakes is influenced by many factors.
The ice that forms the snowflake is transparent. But when there are a lot of snowflakes, then sunlight, reflecting and scattering on the numerous faces of snowflakes, gives us the impression of a white opaque mass - we call it snow. Colliding with supercooled small droplets of water along its path, the snowflake simplifies in shape. When faced with a large drop, it can turn into a hailstone. Different places have their own snow, depending on weather conditions.
It is known that in the spring of 1944, snow flakes measuring up to 10 centimeters fell in Moscow. Snow flakes up to 30 centimeters were observed in Siberia. Prerequisite for this there is complete calm. Snowflakes swirl in the air for a long time, rising and falling, traveling for a long time, colliding and interlocking with each other. The slightest breeze breaks such flakes into separate parts. At low temperatures and strong wind snowflakes collide in the air, crumble and fall to the ground in the form of debris.
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The assertion, familiar to every schoolchild, that no two snowflakes are alike, has been repeatedly questioned. But the unique research of the Californian University of Technology were able to put the finishing touches on this truly New Year's question.
Snow forms when microscopic drops Water in clouds is attracted to dust particles and freezes.
The ice crystals that appear, initially not exceeding 0.1 mm in diameter, fall down and grow as a result of condensation of moisture from the air on them. This produces six-pointed crystalline forms.
Due to the structure of water molecules, angles of only 60° and 120° are possible between the rays of the crystal. The main water crystal has a plane shape regular hexagon. New crystals are then deposited on the vertices of such a hexagon, new crystals are deposited on them, and so the result is various forms snowflake stars.
University of California physics professor Kenneth Libbrecht unveiled the results of years of research on his scientific group. “If you see two identical snowflakes, they are still different!” - says the professor.
Libbrecht proved that in the composition of snow molecules, for approximately every five hundred oxygen atoms with a mass of 16 g/mol, there is one atom with a mass of 18 g/mol.
The structure of the bonds of a molecule with such an atom is such that it suggests an innumerable number of options for connections within the crystal lattice.
In other words, if two snowflakes really look the same, then their identity still needs to be verified at the microscopic level.
Studying the properties of snow (and, in particular, snowflakes) is not child's play. Knowledge about the nature of snow and snow clouds is very important when studying climate change.
- Translation
Snowflakes various forms and sizes that appeared in natural environment. Photo from Popular Science Monthly Volume No. 53 of 1898.
You may have heard the saying about the “special snowflake.” The point is that snowflakes are beautiful and valuable because in their huge quantity it is impossible to find two identical ones. They say that no two snowflakes are identical - but is this really true? It’s worth turning to what science thinks about this – this is exactly what one of our readers asks us about:
I've heard scientists say that no two snowflakes are alike. And I will say: how can this be known for sure, unless you study all the snowflakes that have fallen to the ground? Maybe somewhere in Russia a snowflake falls at the same time as an identical snowflake somewhere in Minnesota.
To consider this issue with scientific point In terms of vision, you need to understand how a snowflake is made and how likely it is to get two identical snowflakes.
Snowflake under an optical microscope
A snowflake is water molecules bound together in a specific solid configuration. Most of them exhibit hexagonal symmetry; this occurs due to the angle at which water molecules are able to bond with each other. This angle is determined by the physics of an oxygen atom, two hydrogen atoms and electromagnetic interaction. The simplest microscopic snow crystal that can be seen with an optical microscope is one millionth of a meter (1 µm) in size and can take quite simple shapes- for example, a flat hexagon. It contains only about 10,000 atoms, and among them you can find many identical ones.
The hexagonal symmetry of snowflakes has been known for a long time. This collection of photographs dates back to 1902.
According to the Guinness Book of Records, Nancy Knight, a scientist from National Center Atmospheric Research was lucky enough to discover two identical snowflakes while examining snow crystals from a 1988 Wisconsin snowstorm using a microscope. But Guinness issues a certificate only on the basis of the identity of snowflakes, taking into account the accuracy available to a microscope. When physics requires the identity of two objects, it means identity up to subatomic particles! And this means:
It is necessary that precisely such particles
formed in exactly this configuration
with the same connections between them
in two different macroscopic systems.
Let's explore what this would require.
One water molecule is one oxygen atom and two hydrogen atoms bonded together. When frozen water molecules bind together, four other molecules are bound to each of them: one at each vertex of the tetrahedron centered on that molecule. As a result, water molecules are packed into a hexagonal lattice crystal lattice. But large prismatic “cubes” of ice, such as those seen near quartz deposits, are extremely rare. Moving from the smallest scales and configurations to top level, you will see that the top and bottom surfaces of this lattice are very tightly packed and connected to each other - there are flat edges on both sides. Conversely, individual molecules are visible on the remaining faces, and new water molecules bind to them in a more random order. At the corners of the hexagon, the bonds are the weakest, which is why hexagonal symmetry appears in growing crystals.
Formation and growth of a snow crystal, video fragment
Then the newly formed structures grow according to this symmetrical pattern, maintaining hexagonal asymmetry when they reach a certain size. Large and complex snow crystals have hundreds of visible features under a microscope. You can see hundreds distinctive features, and about 10 19 water molecules that make up a typical snowflake, according to Charles Knight of the National Center for Atmospheric Research. And for each of these features there are millions suitable places, in which new shoots can form. So how many of these new features can a snowflake form and still be identical to another?
Full video
Every year about 3 * 10 13 cubic meters of snow falls on the ground, and in each cubic meter contains approximately 3*10 10 snowflakes. Since the Earth has existed for about 4.5 billion years, about 10 34 snowflakes have fallen on it throughout its history. Statistically speaking, the number of individual unique symmetrically branching features a snowflake could afford to produce an identical twin over the course of Earth's history is five. Moreover, real, fully grown natural snowflakes have hundreds of such features.
Even on a millimeter scale, you can see many imperfections on a snowflake that make it difficult to reproduce another, exactly the same snowflake
It will be possible to find two identical snowflakes only if you look at the smallest crystals on initial stages growth. And if you go down to the molecular level, the situation gets even worse. Typically, oxygen has 8 protons and 8 neutrons, while hydrogen has 1 proton and 0 neutrons. However, about one in 500 oxygen atoms has 10 neutrons, and one in 5,000 hydrogen atoms has 1 neutron, not 0. With these numbers, even if you create a perfect hexagonal snow crystal, and get to the number of crystals that fall to the ground in the whole story - 10 34, you will only need to grow to a size of several thousand molecules, that is, to a snowflake 0.01 microns in size (this is less than the wavelength visible light) to obtain a unique structure that the world has never seen before.
When examining a hexagonal rimmed snow crystal under an electron microscope, one can see how many subtle and varied imperfections it has that cannot be reproduced on molecular level
But if you want to ignore differences at the atomic and molecular level and use artificial snowflakes, here's your chance. Snowflake researcher Kenneth Libbrecht of Caltech has developed a technology for creating artificial, identical snowflakes and photographing them using a special microscope he calls the SnowMaster 9000.
Growing snowflakes nearby in certain laboratory conditions he showed that it was possible to create two snowflakes that were indistinguishable from each other.
Or something like that. They are indistinguishable to a person looking through a microscope - but in reality they are different. Like identical twins, they have many differences: different places molecular connections, slightly different branches, and the larger they are, the better these differences are visible. That is why these snowflakes are made small, and the microscope is powerful: the simpler the snowflakes, the fewer differences there are between them.
However, many snowflakes are similar to each other. But if you look for actually identical snowflakes, on the structural, molecular or atomic level, then nature will never give it to you. The number of possibilities is too great not only for the history of the Earth, but also for the history of the Universe. If we calculate how many planet Earths we would need to have a chance of finding two identical snowflakes in the entire 13.8 billion years of the Universe's existence, we get a number on the order of 10 10 000 000 000 000 000 000 . And since there are only 10 80 atoms in the observable Universe, this is very unlikely. So, apparently, all snowflakes are truly unique.
Table of contents.
Introduction.
Chapter 1.
1.1.Origin of snowflakes.
1.2.Are there any identical snowflakes?
Chapter 2. My experiments.
Chapter 3. Interesting facts about snowflakes.
4. Conclusion.
5. Sources used.
PURPOSE OF THE STUDY:
study snowflakes how amazing phenomenon nature.
RESEARCH OBJECTIVES :
observing snowflakes in nature;
studying the formation of snowflakes;
identifying the variety of snowflake shapes;
experimentally observe the formation of snowflakes;
identify students' knowledge about snowflakes.
HYPOTHESIS.
If water is formed when snowflakes melt, then snowflakes appear from water.
If there are so many snowflakes, then in nature there must be a large number of identical snowflakes.
SUBJECT OF STUDY.
snowflakes
snow
RELEVANCE OF THE TOPIC. Every Small child very inquisitive and everyone is interested in what, where, how...?
RESEARCH METHODS:
1. Studying literature about snowflakes.
2. Photographing snowflakes.
3. Conducting experiments.
4. Analysis of the work done.
Study time:January February2017.
Introduction.
I'll start with a touching, gentle and bewitching poem about a snowflake.
Snowflake.
Light fluffy, white snowflake,
How pure, how brave!
The stormy road easily rushes by,
Not to the azure heights - it asks to land.
Skilfully glides in the shining rays
Among the melting flakes, it is still white.
But here it ends long road,
A crystal star touches the earth.
A brave fluffy snowflake lies
How pure, how white!
(Konstantin Balmont)
Chapter 1.
1.1.Origin of snowflakes.
There is snow. Snowflakes are flying. What's unusual here? Winter has just come. And yet, this is another miracle of nature that this amazing world! Incredible beauty, isn't it? It really is amazing all around us. So, when there is snow or snowflakes flying, you and I are observing not just the phenomenon of winter on earth, but a real miracle of nature worthy of study.
A snowflake is a complex symmetrical structure consisting of ice crystals. Snow forms when microscopic water droplets in clouds are attracted to dust particles and freeze. The ice crystals that appear fall down and grow as a result of condensation of moisture from the air on them. This produces six-pointed crystalline forms. And the snowflake is sent to the ground as a six-pointed star. But they reach the ground in the form of snow only if the temperature is below zero. If the temperature is higher, the snowflakes evaporate and turn into water vapor, which rises again. Or these crystals melt and fall to the ground in the form of rain or cereals. And sometimes it happens that on the roof of a high-rise building snowing, and it’s already raining outside.
The type of snowflakes depends on the water content in the cloud where it originated, air temperature, and altitude above sea level. Even if two identical snowflakes were “born”, they will have to travel to the ground at a speed of approximately 1 km. at one o'clock. They find themselves in different temperature conditions and reach the ground with completely different patterns, but always hexagonal in shape. Scientists have been able to identify several main forms of snowflakes. They were even given names:
star,
plate,
column,
needle,
fluff,
hedgehog,
stud.
The shape of snowflakes depends on the weather.
On a windless frosty day, snowflakes fall slowly. They are large, shiny, like stars. Snowflakes fall one at a time, so they are easy to see.
In mild frost, snowflakes look like snow balls - “snow pellets”. And with strong the wind goes“snow dust”, as the wind breaks off the rays and edges of snowflakes.
When there is no frost, snowflakes falling to the ground stick to each other and form “snow flakes.” They are large and resemble pieces of cotton wool.”
Each snowflake is unique, just like a fingerprint or human DNA. There are no identical snowflakes, just as there are no identical leaves on trees, identical raindrops, or identical people.
But if a snowflake is a crystal, then why is it white, it should be transparent? This is thanks to the air (95%) contained in it! Light is reflected on the surfaces between the crystals and in the air and scattered. Thanks to the air, snowflakes are very light. Even during very heavy snow drifts, people or animals can breathe under the snow for a long time.
1.2. Are there any identical snowflakes?
Are there two identical snowflakes? No! Farmer Wilson Bentley proved this in his work in 1885; it was he who managed to take the first photograph of a snowflake under a microscope. And it took him 46 years to do this!
Since childhood, he studied the shape of crystals falling from the sky, for which he received the nickname “Snowflake”. Wilson devoted his entire life to the study of snowflakes, in total he took 5,000 photographs, and not one of them showed repeating snowflakes.
One of the first scientists to think about the structure of snow was German mathematician and astronomer Johannes Kepler (1571–1630). In 1611 he published a short treatise, The New Year's Gift, or About hexagonal snowflakes", which can be called the first scientific work dedicated to snowflakes.
Chapter 2. Research.
I always thought that if water is formed after snow melts, then after freezing the water droplets will turn into snowflakes.
Experiment 1.
I froze the water droplets, but the snowflakes didn’t turn out.And that means , snow does not appear from water droplets. Droplets of water can become hailstones, lumps of ice, but not snowflakes.
Experiment 2.
In the snow, I went outside and put my mitten under the snow. Several snowflakes fell on her. I began to examine them through a magnifying glass.
WITH Nezhinki can be clearly seen only when they fall on the palm. Under the influence of even a small force, they break, which means snowflakes are very fragile.
I interviewed 40 elementary school students.
Based on the interview results
35 out of 40 guys say that a snowflake is made of water;
30 out of 40 guys claim that there are identical snowflakes;
Since I really like snowflakes, I learned how to cut them out of paper, color them and draw them.
On New Year I had a snowflake costume:
Also, my parents and I remembered how we built a house from construction kit parts. I took small parts, but the building turned out to be large. Nature also knows how to build. But she builds not houses, but snowflakes from an unusual ice constructor - from tiny pieces of ice!
Chapter 3. Interesting things about snowflakes.
During a snowfall in 1987, a world record snowflake with a diameter of 38 cm was found in Fort Coy (Montana, USA).
More than half the population globe I've never seen snow, except in photographs.
On Far North The snow can be so hard that when an ax hits it, it rings as if struck by iron.
In Japan, scientists call snowflakes letters from heaven, which are written in secret hieroglyphs.
Conclusion.
While working on the topic, I achieved my goal and learned a lot about snowflakes. In the process of study and research, I solved the problems I set. Unfortunately, my hypotheses were not confirmed. While working on the project, I learned that no two snowflakes are the same. I also learned that they appear from diamond dust, they always have a center, are symmetrical and hexagonal.
Used sources:
Are snowflakes the same, or what is hidden in frozen water? - Access mode:http://shkolazhizni.ru/archive/0/n-33171/
Poems about snow and snowflakes. - Access mode:http://www.razumniki.ru/stihi_ro_sneg_i_sneginki.html
MOBU "Ruem Secondary School"
"Can snowflakes be the same"
(project)
Completed by: Alina Pugacheva,
2nd grade student
Head: Zakharova A.M.,
primary school teacher
Ruem village, 2013
I love watching snowflakes falling. I was wondering, are all snowflakes the same? I decided to ask the guys in my class what they thought about this.
Student's full name | Yes | No |
|
Azmanova D. | |||
Apakova V. | |||
Bogdanov A. | |||
Entsov A. | |||
Ivanov A. | |||
Kudryavtseva P. | |||
Logacheva T. | |||
Mamaev E. | |||
Mansurov K. | |||
Mikheeva A. | |||
Sautov D. | |||
Safiullina O. | |||
Smolentseva N. | |||
Sorokin D. | |||
Stepanenko M. | |||
Toktaeva D. | |||
Tumanova V. | |||
Result: |
To answer this question, I will have to look through additional scientific literature, search additional material in the Internet.
Many people probably know that it is impossible to find a pair of identical snowflakes in nature, but they can be very similar to each other. This phenomenon is a centuries-old mystery that the process of computer modeling has helped to reveal in our days.
For the first time, the German astronomer and mathematician Johannes Kepler tried to get closer to the answer, writing in one of his treatises that all snowflakes have six faces and one axis of symmetry. The great scientist associated this structure with the nature of the arrangement of particles. his assumptions formed the basis of the science of crystallography.
Another philosopher and mathematician, the Frenchman Rene Descartes, began studying and describing snowflakes in 1635, observing them with the naked eye. The scientist described their structure as similar to roses, lilies and mechanical gears with six teeth. Descartes was also the first to see and describe a snowflake with 12 rays. It is still believed that a twelve-pointed snowflake is very rare; it is not known for certain under what conditions its formation occurs.
In 1665, the English naturalist Robert Hooke studied snowflakes under a microscope. he left science a large number of sketches. And the first photographs were taken by American farmer Wheels Bentley. This man had been fascinated by the structure of snowflakes since childhood, and when he had the opportunity, he devoted himself to photographing them. It took him two years to get the first pictures. The camera designed by Bentley is a hybrid of a camera and a microscope. Interestingly, at first these photographs were not considered authentic, but a few years later they were recognized and are successfully used as illustrations for various scientific articles. In 1931, Bentley published the book Snow Crystals, which contained more than 2,500 photographs.
But the Japanese approached the study of the issue most thoroughly. Hokkaido University professor Ukihiro Nakaya began growing artificial snowflakes in 1932, which allowed him to create the first classification of snow crystals. as well as determine the dependence of the shape and size of these formations on the temperature and humidity of the surrounding air. He created a classification containing 41 individual type. In the city of Kaga, located in the west of the island of Honshu, there is the “Museum of Snow and Ice,” named after the scientist. a machine for producing artificial snowflakes is kept there. Many years later, in 1996, meteorologists Magano and Xiu Li described 80 types.
Thus, having studied the scientific and educational literature on this issue, searching on the Internet, watching the falling snowflakes, I came to conclusion that There are no identical snowflakes, each snowflake is beautiful in its own way.
Snowflakes
Winter is full of snow
From morning until dark.
Snowflakes curl and spin
At our window.
It's like the stars are sparkling
scattered around.
The silver ones are rushing,
They look into the house.
Then they will ask you to come into the room,
They'll run away again
They rush behind the glass,
They're calling me to go outside.
S.Baruzdin
Used sources:
- Are snowflakes the same, or what is hidden in frozen water? - Access mode:http://shkolazhizni.ru/archive/0/n-33171/
- Poems about snow and snowflakes. - Access mode:http://www.razumniki.ru/stihi_ro_sneg_i_sneginki.html