The Impossibility Of Identical Snowflakes Poem by Terence George Craddock (Spectral Images and Images Of Light)

Once upon a time
throughout most of
the twentieth century

it was believed no
two snowflakes
could be exactly alike.

Mathematically it is
highly unlikely
for two snowflakes
to be exactly alike.

This is due to
the roughly
10 to power 19

water molecules
which make up
a snowflake.


Snowflakes grow
at different rates
in different patterns.

The snowflake
growth rate pattern
probabilities vary

depending on
changing temperature
changing humidity

within the atmosphere
the snowflake
growth falls through

on its journey
to the ground
gravity induced.


The dawn birth
of snowflake
scientific research

began in 1885
initial attempts
to identify find

identical twin snowflakes
by photographing
thousands of snowflakes.

Wilson Alwyn Bentley
using a microscope
found the wide variety

of classic snowflakes
forms known today
in eye matching detail.


Probability theory
holds it is more likely
that two snowflakes

could become virtually
identical if their changing
temperature humidity

environments
were
similar enough.

Matching snow crystals
were discovered in
Wisconsin USA in 1988.

The crystals were not traditional
flakes but hollow hexagonal prisms
true moral of the snowflake story?


If you want to spend years
trying to identify
identical snowflakes in eye

matching detail; do not use error
random eye memory method
use instant point match computer.


Copyright © Terence George Craddock