Your kids aren't unique and neither are snowflakes
[A child catches a snowflake on its tongue. Photo from Getty Images]
Many parents will claim their children are unique, special, like snowflakes. Well, your kids aren’t. On the other hand neither are snowflakes, at least not really.
Michael Edwards, the the director of strategic initiatives and exhibits at Science East, said it’s all a matter of interpretation.
“Well, it kind of depends on your definition of what a snowflake is and you definition of what identical or exactly the same is as well,” said Edwards.
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Edwards said snowflakes come in different sizes, but the ones that most people think about are the hexagonal ones, similar to the paper craft kind. These generally happen when the temperature is just right.
“I’ve noticed that if it’s in the sort of –5 C to –10 C [range], not much warmer not much cooler, then we seem to get really nice pretty ones,” said Edwards.
The structure of these snowflakes are due to the structure of water molecules. Molecules in general have hexagonal shapes and water molecules are made up of three of them. That would be of course two parts hydrogen and one part oxygen. This means two things, water molecules look like Mickey Mouse’s head, and these snowflakes are structurally similar.
“All snowflakes are basically a six sided thing, you never get four sided snowflakes or eight sided snowflakes,” said Edwards.
Edwards said a septillion snowflakes fall every year, think 24 zeros, so the laws of probability would dictate at least some of them are identical. That’s not to say every snowflake has a doppelganger.
“The more complicated a snowflake gets the less likely you are to find one that’s identical to it,” said Edwards.
Some snowflakes never look unique, especially in our winters.
“Sometimes snowflakes are just like little sticks, little needle ones, which we get fairly often if there’s a big snowfall coming,” said Edwards.
