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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff

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Speaker 1: Works dot com. Hey, welcome to stuff Blow your Mind.

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Speaker 1: My name is Robert Lamps, and I'm Julie Douglas. Julie,

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Speaker 1: what crosses your mind when you look at a snowy landscape?

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Speaker 1: You know, whether we're talking an actual in person visit

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Speaker 1: to a winter wonderland or you just looking at say

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Speaker 1: an old Peter Brugle painting of a of a snow

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Speaker 1: colored medieval landscape. Oh, an old Pete medieval landscape. Um,

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Speaker 1: I think just obviously about the season. I don't think

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Speaker 1: about the collective power of the ice crystals within. I

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Speaker 1: just look at the the effect of the collective and

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Speaker 1: how beautiful it is. Yeah, the most you're probably gonna say,

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Speaker 1: look at all that snow. You're not gonna say, look

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Speaker 1: at those snow flakes. Imagine how many there are. Imagine

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Speaker 1: how many little bits of crystallized water have contributed to this, uh,

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Speaker 1: this overall picture before us. Yeah, particularly if you're in

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Speaker 1: the Midwest right now and you're getting a bunch of

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Speaker 1: snow dumped on you and you have to shovel all that,

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Speaker 1: you're probably not thinking about the majesty of these tiny

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Speaker 1: little geometric crystal kingdoms within. Yeah, you're not celebrating the snowflake.

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Speaker 1: I feel like, yeah, here here in the South. I've

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Speaker 1: always lived in places where there's snow, but definitely in

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Speaker 1: the South and like Tennessee and Georgia, I've lived in

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Speaker 1: places where the snow is rare enough to where you

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Speaker 1: can get excited about it when it's not there and

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Speaker 1: also make little cardboard snowflakes that end up going on

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Speaker 1: the you know, the kindergarten wall. Yeah, I mean it's

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Speaker 1: something you're right in the South. It's like, you know,

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Speaker 1: whenever snowflake comes tumbling down from the sky. But we're

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Speaker 1: going to take this sort of powers of ten approach today.

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Speaker 1: We're gonna try to get um from the macro to

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Speaker 1: the micro and really get into snowflakes and whether or

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Speaker 1: not they are unique each snowflake, Is it unique? And

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Speaker 1: what if anything it has to do with ripparologists and

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Speaker 1: all sorts of other things. All Right, so it begs

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Speaker 1: a question what is a snowflake? Again, It's easy to

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Speaker 1: take it for granted, to forget there there or did

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Speaker 1: not think about them at all. It's just this funny,

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Speaker 1: little beautiful shape that falls from the sky and it's

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Speaker 1: made out of ice, and it piles up and forms

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Speaker 1: a lot of snow. But but but when you stop

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Speaker 1: and ask yourself, how does it form, Well, it's a

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Speaker 1: little more complicated. Then it all begins with a little

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Speaker 1: tiny speck of dust. Yeah, this is a possible hexagon

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Speaker 1: based scenario. I mean, first, you have to have temperatures

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Speaker 1: at thirty two degrees fahrenheit or lower in a cloud

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Speaker 1: for water vapor to attach to that little dust grain. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: That's also known as a condensation nuclei because this is

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Speaker 1: going to form the heart of everything that grows out

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Speaker 1: from it, Yeah, which then crystallizes into ice. And once

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Speaker 1: it does this, a prism forms with six faces and

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Speaker 1: a top in the bottom. And if you guys can

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Speaker 1: sort of imagine all that in your brain, You've got

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Speaker 1: the top and the bottom and each has a side,

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Speaker 1: six sides right, and a cavity forms in each prism

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Speaker 1: face where ice grows fastest, and then six branches sprout,

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Speaker 1: forming that hexagon. Now, where it's going to go from

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Speaker 1: there depends again on the conditions in that cloud, because

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Speaker 1: the vapor content is really important in terms of how

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Speaker 1: that snowflake might grow. In size, in shape, and also

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Speaker 1: again the climate. So if it if you know, things

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Speaker 1: get warm, then you get a different shape from that

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Speaker 1: ice crystal. But if things freeze up, like say high

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Speaker 1: altitude sears cloud might produce, then you get that doily

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Speaker 1: effect that really intricate beautiful snowflake falling down. Yeah, I

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Speaker 1: was reading about when they when they fall through the

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Speaker 1: warmer air, their slower growth. But there's a there's a

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Speaker 1: there's widening that occurs. So and as we've discussed before,

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Speaker 1: I mean, you can even have red snow in some cases,

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Speaker 1: this blood snow that is that has been seen to

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Speaker 1: fall uh in various places throughout history. The idea being

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Speaker 1: here that little speck of dust at the center of

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Speaker 1: it all is red in color and therefore dictate the

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Speaker 1: overall color of the snow. That would be just wonderful

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Speaker 1: to have, like red snowflakes, wouldn't it be terrifying? But

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Speaker 1: red Christmas? Yeah, I'm dreaming bloody Christmas. All right. So

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Speaker 1: here's the thing. A tiny snowflake could actually affect the climate.

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Speaker 1: Not on a huge scale here, but Hands Berlin, Associate

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Speaker 1: Professor of Meteeralogy at Penn State, says that quote serious

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Speaker 1: clouds are known to play a large role in energy

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Speaker 1: budget enhanced climate. The molecular level processes determine the shape

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Speaker 1: of the ice crystals, which then determine the characteristics of

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Speaker 1: the clouds themselves, which control the radiative properties of clouds

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Speaker 1: and the role of serrus in climate. Yeah, I mean,

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Speaker 1: it's the And these guys should know. They have an

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Speaker 1: awesome job. They're snowflake designers. They use the Penn State

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Speaker 1: cloud chamber to to explore ice crystal growth in a

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Speaker 1: in this environment that's designed to mimic the conditions that

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Speaker 1: are similar to serious cloud environments. Yeah, and as she

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Speaker 1: said that the actual cloud chamber and they inject you know,

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Speaker 1: a little bit of vapor and there, and it's fascinating

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Speaker 1: to watch. Now, you know, the idea that little something

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Speaker 1: is insignificant seeming as a as a snow crystal could

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Speaker 1: and lead to fast changes in effect climate. It's interesting

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Speaker 1: because it's you know, very much that idea of the

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Speaker 1: butterfly effect. And of course the butterfly effect has its

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Speaker 1: heart in chaos theory, which actually stems for meteorology and

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Speaker 1: trying to figure out what is going to happen with

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Speaker 1: the weather at any given time, and as we look

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Speaker 1: into the future, there's so many factors in in our

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Speaker 1: in our weather, in our climate, in our atmosphere, and

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Speaker 1: the smallest thing does having enormous repercussions. Yeah, as the

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Speaker 1: butterfly wings in this butterfly effect theory would dictate. Right,

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Speaker 1: at least that's the idea behind it. But what we

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Speaker 1: really want to get to is is the snowflake unique?

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Speaker 1: Does it have a doppel gang or does it have

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Speaker 1: a double out there? When we hear about this all

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Speaker 1: the time, each snowflake is unique and beautiful. Yeah, it's

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Speaker 1: it's something we we hear growing up because the the

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Speaker 1: obvious analogy to grow to draw there is not only

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Speaker 1: is the snowflake unique and beautiful, but you are unique

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Speaker 1: and beautiful. You are one of a kind. You, darling child,

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Speaker 1: are unique and beautiful and there's no one else on

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Speaker 1: this world like you. And as we grow older, we

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Speaker 1: kind of realized that, yes, that is true, but it's

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Speaker 1: not as true as your your mom may have made

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Speaker 1: it out to be when you were younger. You're like,

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Speaker 1: I I am distinctive, I am unique, but I might

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Speaker 1: be a type. Yeah, if you've ever auditioned for for

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Speaker 1: any kind of an acting gig, or really, if you

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Speaker 1: if you've ever uh you know, gone after any job

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Speaker 1: and uh and and had a glimpse of the other

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Speaker 1: people going for the position, then you begin to realize,

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Speaker 1: all right, I may be a unique snowflake, but there

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Speaker 1: are similar snowflakes, and they are my enemies, right, and

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Speaker 1: I'm sure that other snowflakes look at each other like that. Um.

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Speaker 1: But yeah, on a molecular level, a snowflake, Verlin says,

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Speaker 1: could be unique. And he says, let's be specific here

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Speaker 1: and define a snowflake first of all as a single

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Speaker 1: vapor grim crystal. And then he says that he would

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Speaker 1: say with a great deal of confidence that all crystals

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Speaker 1: are different on this molecular level purely because there are different, says,

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Speaker 1: in the atomic structure of the atoms making up the

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Speaker 1: water molecule, and hence in the water molecules themselves. Yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: very basic level. And it's it's the same as the

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Speaker 1: fact that me and the other person going after the

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Speaker 1: same job we're composed of different atoms, where we're different

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Speaker 1: things on a very physical, uh molecular level. But visually

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Speaker 1: Verylin would say no, because there are only so many

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Speaker 1: types of snowflakes out there or shapes. Yeah, and especially

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Speaker 1: the case when you look at snowflakes in the early

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Speaker 1: stages of their development. The earlier the snowflake is, the

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Speaker 1: younger the snowflake is, the more possibility that you're gonna

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Speaker 1: have repetition. And then as the snowflake develops over time,

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Speaker 1: you know, imagine again the branching occurring, and the and

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Speaker 1: the changes occurring as it goes through these the varying

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Speaker 1: degrees of heat and cold. As time passes, there's less

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Speaker 1: likelihood that you're gonna have deuvils. But there but but still,

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Speaker 1: they're gonna have snowflakes that look a lot alike, at

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Speaker 1: least to the macro level. Right, You're not gonna have

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Speaker 1: pentagon an octagon shaped snowflakes. First of all. Let's just

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Speaker 1: get that. Ever cut one of those out in a

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Speaker 1: class school project, it's a complete lie. Does don't exist? Yeah, pretty,

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Speaker 1: but don't exist. Um, And you will probably have the hexagon, right,

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Speaker 1: that's pretty much like the bass structure here. And there

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Speaker 1: are triangular snowflakes, and most people think about those is

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Speaker 1: more like trying to find a four leaf clover, but

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Speaker 1: they turned out to be more common than we thought.

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Speaker 1: In the study Aerodynamic Stability and the Growth of Triangular

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Speaker 1: snow Crystals, co authors Kenneth Librect and Hannah Arnold described

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Speaker 1: the process as tiny impurities such as dust particles, can

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Speaker 1: cause one edge of the falling snowflake to tilt up

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Speaker 1: as it falls. The snowflakes sides that are pointed down

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Speaker 1: grow faster as the wind blows by, leading to a

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Speaker 1: stable triangular pattern which remains triangular despite any later bumps

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Speaker 1: as it falls, which is kind of fascinating a little

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Speaker 1: bit of aerodynamics going on here. We were looking at

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Speaker 1: some of the various shapes that these snowflakes take on

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Speaker 1: on and it's it's it's really a rich and very

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Speaker 1: uh the world of of snowflakes that we often take

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Speaker 1: completely for granted. I mean, because at heart we're talking

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Speaker 1: about crystal formation. And like in the world of crystals,

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Speaker 1: there's the human idea of crystals, the crystals that humans

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Speaker 1: carve naturally occurring crystals into so they can put it

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Speaker 1: on a ring or pinan or whatever, and then there

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Speaker 1: is that the rich world of actual crystal formation, which,

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Speaker 1: if you know, start doing a Google image search, you

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Speaker 1: just go down the rabbit hole at all these different forms.

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Speaker 1: And the same can be said at the snowflakes you see.

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Speaker 1: I mean some of them look more like like you're

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Speaker 1: looking at a bacteria or something, or some sort of

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Speaker 1: strange um tip for a medical device. Yeah, machine parts.

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Speaker 1: I love these. Most people think about their radiating dendrites.

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Speaker 1: Those are the ones that have the six branches with

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Speaker 1: tiny little branches coming off of it. But there are

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Speaker 1: some amazing things like the scrolls on plates is a

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Speaker 1: type of snowflake, and within that you see all sorts

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Speaker 1: of different variations. And then you see the piling on

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Speaker 1: of ice crystals, like the apped columns kind of look

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Speaker 1: like a I guess you like a bolt. And if

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Speaker 1: you look at like those big those big spools that

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Speaker 1: good wire comes on and that sometimes becomes a coffee

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Speaker 1: table and bachelors. My parents had one of this. But yeah,

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Speaker 1: you will see if you look under an electron microscope,

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Speaker 1: you will see the ice crystals on top of that

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Speaker 1: six sided plate on the very top, and it's just amazing.

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Speaker 1: They really are these crystal kingdoms of ice. Yeah, the

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Speaker 1: there's one that particular shape called capped bullets that if

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Speaker 1: you if you created this or drew this in you know,

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Speaker 1: like a second grade classroom, and called it a snowflake,

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Speaker 1: I have a feeling a lot of teachers would give

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Speaker 1: you an f. But because it looks like three crystal

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Speaker 1: shards joined at the point it does, it doesn't even

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Speaker 1: look real, you know. But but at the at the

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Speaker 1: at the micro level, this is how crystals formed together.

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Speaker 1: This is one of the many structures they can take on. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and we'll try to um to post on this so

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Speaker 1: that you guys have a vision a little reference to this.

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Speaker 1: But if you wanted to look cut up, you could

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Speaker 1: just say electron microscopes snowflakes and you will see just

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Speaker 1: amazing imagery of this stuff. All Right, we're gonna break

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Speaker 1: and when we come back, more snowflakes. All right, we're back,

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Speaker 1: And I should point out that designer snowflakes are possible. Uh.

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Speaker 1: Cal Tech researchers have created flakes in the laboratory using

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Speaker 1: electric needles placed in a diffusion chamber. In this good situation,

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Speaker 1: the crystals grow on the needle's tip, and by altering

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Speaker 1: the conditions of scientists are able to create different sizes

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Speaker 1: and patterns of snowflakes, some uh, perhaps unnatural shapes for snowflakes.

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Speaker 1: I mean, that's got to be one of the best

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Speaker 1: jobs ever then and just yeah, I make I make snowflakes.

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Speaker 1: That yeah. And and again, as we discussed earlier, when

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Speaker 1: we're talking about pen States cloud chamber. Um, when by

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Speaker 1: studying crystal formations in snowflakes, I mean we're we're getting

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Speaker 1: down to some of the fine details of the overwhelming

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Speaker 1: movements of climate. That's right, all these tiny little things

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Speaker 1: that make up climate. And we will discuss this in

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Speaker 1: a bit. There's also this idea that snowflakes can inform

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Speaker 1: us about the universe. But first we have got to

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Speaker 1: talk about what snowflakes have to do with rip parologists. Yes, now,

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Speaker 1: this is this is pretty fabulous stuff. And this idea

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Speaker 1: comes to us from Alan Moore, who who wrote the

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Speaker 1: amazing graphic novel from Hell Uh all black and white,

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Speaker 1: big thick graphic novel about the Ripper murders, and it's

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Speaker 1: it's really a great work of literature. If you haven't

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Speaker 1: read it, uh, it deals with a lot of feminist issues.

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Speaker 1: It deals with some of the grizzly details of the case,

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Speaker 1: and in the epilogue, Alan Moore talks about the idea

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Speaker 1: of the the Cox snowflake to illustrate his point about ripparologists.

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Speaker 1: That's right. He compares the multitude of increasingly outland ripper

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Speaker 1: theories to what is known as a cock snowflake, or

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Speaker 1: a finite fixed location event and error. In this case,

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Speaker 1: London late can have an infinite number of nooks and crannies. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: So with the with the actual fractal idea of the

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Speaker 1: cock snowflake, this is what happens. You start with a

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Speaker 1: triangle and then you remove the inner third of each side,

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Speaker 1: building another triangle at the location where the side was removed.

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Speaker 1: So now you have a star instead of a kind

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Speaker 1: of like a star of David exactly. Yeah, and then

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Speaker 1: you repeat this process indefinitely. The snowflake does not grow

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Speaker 1: in size, but it grows in complexity. So Moore's point

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Speaker 1: in all of this is that there's only so much

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Speaker 1: about the Ripper murders that we know. There's only so

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Speaker 1: much at this point that we will ever know for sure.

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Speaker 1: I mean, unless we actually develop a means of traveling

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Speaker 1: back in time and spying on what happened. Uh, that's

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Speaker 1: not going to happen, so that there's a set amount

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Speaker 1: of information. So the Ripper story as we know it

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Speaker 1: will never expand beyond a certain threshold, but the complexity

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Speaker 1: that we throw at it, that that can grow. So

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Speaker 1: so the idea is that there are only so many

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Speaker 1: facts that we have, and ripparologists those you know, they're

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Speaker 1: obsessed with figuring out exactly who did it, why they

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Speaker 1: did it, what kind of complex plots were involved, the

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Speaker 1: d crafting intricate theory after theory, while our actual knowledge

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Speaker 1: on the incident never expands beyond it, beyond what is

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Speaker 1: currently known. I was just thinking about that in terms

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Speaker 1: of conspiracy theory in general, and I was thinking about

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Speaker 1: big folts. We recently talked about Yetti and Bigfoot. In

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Speaker 1: the idea there is patterns, right, and seeing patterns, and

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Speaker 1: we've talked about this whole lot with cognitive bias and

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Speaker 1: all sorts of conspiracy theorists. But the overlaying of patterns

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Speaker 1: and the symmetry in the in the cock snowflake, this fractal.

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Speaker 1: But again, what you're doing is, you know, every time

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Speaker 1: you put on another equal lateral triangle, it yields another space,

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Speaker 1: and it's an infinite perimeter to just begin into putting

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Speaker 1: on that same pattern right, that layering of that same

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Speaker 1: equilateral triangle. So it's interesting, and I just want to

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Speaker 1: point out to that the Cox snowflake is actually named

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Speaker 1: after Swedish mathematician and his name is Niels Fabian von

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Speaker 1: Koch who identified one of the earliest NEWN fractals. Here. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's a ko c H if you want to check

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Speaker 1: that out. Um. Now, you're probably listening to that, and

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Speaker 1: you're you're thinking, well that you're also talking about a

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Speaker 1: creative process here. You sort of you have a set

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Speaker 1: amount of information and then you're just plowing forward with

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Speaker 1: all this complexity and making the existing information more and

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Speaker 1: more complex in the way it relates to each other.

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Speaker 1: And indeed you will find snowflake novel writing methods out

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Speaker 1: there on the internet, which I've always found interesting. I

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Speaker 1: haven't really ever tried to employ one, but I like

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Speaker 1: the idea. And the idea is you start with a

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Speaker 1: simple idea. You start with your your basic outline, you

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Speaker 1: know you're and then you expand it, you create a

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Speaker 1: snowflake out of it. Um. You know, you can think

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Speaker 1: of various novels that sort of occupy the same space

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Speaker 1: that if very basic level, I mean, how many fantasy,

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Speaker 1: epic fantasy novels sound more or less the same, how

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Speaker 1: many detective novels sound more or less the same. And

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Speaker 1: to a certain extent, it's all been done before, right

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Speaker 1: where it where stuff differentiates from the next book and

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Speaker 1: the next book is in the details, is in the

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Speaker 1: the the the intricate nature of the snowflake. Even if

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Speaker 1: our existing literature and it is really only only gonna

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Speaker 1: occupy the same space, It's not going to expand beyond

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Speaker 1: its current threshold. Well, you know, as a fiction writer

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Speaker 1: who comes to the blank page with a cacophony of ideas,

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Speaker 1: I find that really seductive, this idea that you just

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Speaker 1: create this triangle, this simple triangle of the plot, and

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Speaker 1: then you begin to just fill it out from there,

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Speaker 1: and that way you can sort of tame some of

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Speaker 1: the ideas, some of the thoughts and the characters that

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Speaker 1: are running around in your head. Yeah, you know, it

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Speaker 1: brings me back to the whole idea, right, what you know? Right,

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Speaker 1: so there's a fixed amount of what I know. It

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Speaker 1: comes down to how you implement what you know and

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Speaker 1: how you how you range it on the page and

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Speaker 1: how you create this snowflake. Uh, just to go off

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Speaker 1: on a tangent here for a second, I was thinking

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Speaker 1: about this. I was thinking, I wonder if you can

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Speaker 1: weave neuroscience into an actual writing class. And the reason

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Speaker 1: is is because as readers, we have all sorts of

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Speaker 1: neurons firing right mirror neurons as we read on the

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Speaker 1: page what the character is doing. So if the character

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Speaker 1: is weeping or playing baseball, then there are certain things

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Speaker 1: going on our heads that are connecting with that. And

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Speaker 1: I was thinking that one of the reasons why some

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Speaker 1: characters work in some don't is because they seem like

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Speaker 1: caricatures and we can't relate to them because it doesn't

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Speaker 1: feel real. It's outside of the writer's experience perhaps when

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Speaker 1: they're trying to render that character that's snowflake, so it's

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Speaker 1: you know, it would be nice to see if some

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Speaker 1: of the world of science could inform fiction writing. That

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Speaker 1: would be interesting, That would be interesting. Shower thoughts by

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Speaker 1: Julie Douglas. But anyway, let's get back to this, because

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Speaker 1: I think the interesting idea that um that you could

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Speaker 1: have this pattern making and in the sense of ripparologists

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Speaker 1: or conspiracy theories in the Coke snowflake, you'd always have

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Speaker 1: uncertainty no matter how much you layered it on. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean, that's the remarkable thing about it is that

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Speaker 1: again we'll never be able to say with accuracy this

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Speaker 1: is what happened, and this is this is who is involved?

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Speaker 1: Uh we but we just keep learing on the the

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Speaker 1: complexity of our theories. I mean, you see a similar

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Speaker 1: thing with the assassination of jfk uh. We have the facts,

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Speaker 1: we have them arranged, and then we cannot help but

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Speaker 1: continue to go back and try and create a more

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Speaker 1: complex idea of what happened. Um. In large part I

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Speaker 1: believe is William Manchester room of this argument pointed out

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Speaker 1: that all right, we were pretty much know Oswald killed Kennedy,

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Speaker 1: like the end that it was just a lone gunman situation.

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Speaker 1: But when you compare the two, when you put them

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Speaker 1: on the scale, you have such a an insignificant and

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Speaker 1: easily person as Oswald on this level, and then you

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Speaker 1: have a figure like Kennedy on the other. They don't

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Speaker 1: balance out you and you would have to plut you

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Speaker 1: would have to throw more complexity onto the Oswald side

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Speaker 1: of the scale. To even things out to where it

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Speaker 1: kind of makes sense in a more epic sense of

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Speaker 1: the word, and then you're just further down the rabbit hole. Right. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I want to make this sort of thread through snowflakes

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Speaker 1: and zen and joy, and I don't know if we'll

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Speaker 1: be able to fully get at this idea, but I

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Speaker 1: did think one of the things about snowflakes is that

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Speaker 1: when you pay attention to them, you really are paying

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Speaker 1: attention to the details of the world. You're slowing things down.

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Speaker 1: And we talked about this when we were discussing labyrinths

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Speaker 1: and many other topics, that you're it's a meditative process

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Speaker 1: and you're seeing things as they are as opposed to

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Speaker 1: that blueprint in your mind, just creating memory for you

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Speaker 1: and you know, creating your reality. Yeah, that's what I

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Speaker 1: like about this idea about snowflakes is particularly the electron

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Speaker 1: microscope when you're looking at them, because you really get

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Speaker 1: to see all of those nooks and crannies and that

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Speaker 1: that that snowflake, it is such an ephemeral object because

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Speaker 1: it's gone in seconds. Well you know, it gets frozen

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Speaker 1: into the uh, into a snowdrift, and then it's molecularly

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Speaker 1: changed anyway. Yeah, it's been in a state of change

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Speaker 1: its entire existence, and then it is and then it

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Speaker 1: changes again into into mire water. And so I thought,

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Speaker 1: this is really a good example of perhaps something called joy,

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Speaker 1: one of these emotions, uh that we try to figure

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Speaker 1: out and and categorize. And Zadie Smith, she's a writer.

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Speaker 1: She has a really great essay on joy, and she

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Speaker 1: goes through and she makes the distinction between pleasure and joy.

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Speaker 1: She's a pleasure is like you know, eating a popsicle

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Speaker 1: on a hot day and avoiding my work for seven

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Speaker 1: minutes while I eat the popsicle. And Joy is my

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Speaker 1: child who is a pleasure. Um, she says, though mostly

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Speaker 1: she's a joy, which means, in fact, she gives us

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Speaker 1: not much pleasure at all, but rather that strange admixture

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Speaker 1: of terror pain into light that have come to recognize

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Speaker 1: as joy and now must find some way to live

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Speaker 1: with daily. And I thought, that is that is a

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Speaker 1: in a sense of snowflake, because that's it's it's going

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Speaker 1: to be gone. And anyway, she goes on and on

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Speaker 1: about joy and parenting and uh, just the the existence

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Speaker 1: of life. Really that that is a beautiful way of

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Speaker 1: looking at it, and I can certainly relate to that,

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Speaker 1: having recently become a parent myself, that parenting is not

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Speaker 1: a a seven minute experience with a popsicle. It is.

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Speaker 1: It's more in keeping how she framed it there as

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Speaker 1: a as an as an overall joy, but but in

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Speaker 1: the individual moment, uh, maybe not so pleasurable. Yeah, terrifying

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Speaker 1: and beautiful and terrifying for the reasons because it is,

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Speaker 1: as we all know, life on Earth is temporary existence

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Speaker 1: and sort of uh underscores that point force a lot,

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Speaker 1: just like a snowflake melting in the sun. Um. But

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Speaker 1: I think that what's interesting again about snowflakes is that

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Speaker 1: they do allow us to go macro and micro. And

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Speaker 1: if you wanted to go macro on this, all you

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Speaker 1: would have to do is look at the galaxies. And

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Speaker 1: one guy by the name of Professor Duncan Forbes who

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Speaker 1: says that galaxy formation is very similar to snowflake formation. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it comes. I mean a lot of it comes down

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Speaker 1: to the basic idea of accretion, which we've talked about before,

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Speaker 1: when we've talked about the formation of planets and stars

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Speaker 1: and solar systems and you know, on up to the galaxies.

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Speaker 1: When you have just a very small, a little bit

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Speaker 1: of a bit of matter, and it's the exerting gravitational force,

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Speaker 1: it draws in another bit of matter, and then the

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Speaker 1: graviltational force grows and grows. It's like a snowball going

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Speaker 1: down a hill. It eventually gets bigger and bigger, draws

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Speaker 1: in more matter from the surrounding area, and that's how

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Speaker 1: you end up with a planet or a star or

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Speaker 1: in these larger cases, um galaxies. Um starts out very

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Speaker 1: small and than the galaxies, uh, than seed in this

427
00:23:03,080 --> 00:23:06,720
Speaker 1: constant stream of other stars, other regions of other you know,

428
00:23:06,880 --> 00:23:11,159
Speaker 1: vast tracts of of gas. Yeah, so these giants, I mean,

429
00:23:11,200 --> 00:23:13,879
Speaker 1: they're being formed. But essentially it's the same process as

430
00:23:13,920 --> 00:23:16,800
Speaker 1: a snowflake that has that seed, and then it grows

431
00:23:16,840 --> 00:23:19,399
Speaker 1: the water vapor, and then that water vapor accumulates on

432
00:23:19,440 --> 00:23:21,280
Speaker 1: the surface of snowflake, and so on and so forth.

433
00:23:21,520 --> 00:23:23,280
Speaker 1: It's kind of a lovely thought to think that that

434
00:23:23,359 --> 00:23:27,920
Speaker 1: snowflake has very much a lot of in common with

435
00:23:28,200 --> 00:23:32,200
Speaker 1: this infinite universe idea. Yeah, snowflakes of the gods, if

436
00:23:32,200 --> 00:23:34,920
Speaker 1: you will, I love that. If we could right now,

437
00:23:35,359 --> 00:23:38,080
Speaker 1: we would just say, and happy holidays everyone, and then

438
00:23:38,520 --> 00:23:41,399
Speaker 1: and whatever wherever place you are, in your car, in

439
00:23:41,440 --> 00:23:44,920
Speaker 1: your room, at home, on the train commuting, snowflakes would

440
00:23:44,920 --> 00:23:47,960
Speaker 1: fall down gently upon your head. Indeed, but I'm going

441
00:23:48,040 --> 00:23:51,120
Speaker 1: to read a quote from Corn McCarthy, so so that

442
00:23:50,840 --> 00:23:53,400
Speaker 1: that'll kind of deaden some of the joy. But still

443
00:23:53,440 --> 00:23:55,800
Speaker 1: it's a beautiful quote. This is from the Border trilogy,

444
00:23:56,240 --> 00:24:01,119
Speaker 1: um and this is one speaker up, an individual speaking

445
00:24:01,160 --> 00:24:03,960
Speaker 1: to another character. He says, snowflake, You catch the snowflake,

446
00:24:04,040 --> 00:24:06,159
Speaker 1: but when you look in your hands, you don't have

447
00:24:06,200 --> 00:24:09,560
Speaker 1: it no more. Maybe you see this the shadow, this pattern,

448
00:24:09,880 --> 00:24:12,280
Speaker 1: but before you see it's gone. If you want to

449
00:24:12,280 --> 00:24:14,159
Speaker 1: see it, you have to see it on its own ground.

450
00:24:14,240 --> 00:24:16,199
Speaker 1: If you catch it, you lose it. And where it

451
00:24:16,240 --> 00:24:18,760
Speaker 1: goes there is no coming back from not even God

452
00:24:18,800 --> 00:24:23,840
Speaker 1: can bring it back. Happy holidays. Have I have a

453
00:24:23,920 --> 00:24:28,320
Speaker 1: nice CORNL. McCarthy Christmas, everybody, as you as you ruminate

454
00:24:28,359 --> 00:24:30,439
Speaker 1: on that, but but also yeah, as you look if

455
00:24:30,440 --> 00:24:33,240
Speaker 1: you were fortunate enough to experience a white Christmas, a

456
00:24:33,320 --> 00:24:36,320
Speaker 1: pleasantly white Christmas, not a not one that is, you know,

457
00:24:36,359 --> 00:24:40,920
Speaker 1: turning your area into a frigid waste land. But you

458
00:24:40,960 --> 00:24:42,399
Speaker 1: get to look out on the snow. Think about those

459
00:24:42,440 --> 00:24:46,480
Speaker 1: little snowflakes. Think about that tiny, intricate design and how

460
00:24:46,520 --> 00:24:49,120
Speaker 1: it all spirals out from their affecting climate. And look

461
00:24:49,160 --> 00:24:52,880
Speaker 1: up into the sky and think about these, uh, these stars,

462
00:24:52,960 --> 00:24:54,920
Speaker 1: these planets that have formed and are you can continue

463
00:24:54,920 --> 00:24:58,359
Speaker 1: to form and uh and the galactic formations that, in

464
00:24:58,560 --> 00:25:02,560
Speaker 1: their own way are much the snowflake. Indeed, And if

465
00:25:02,560 --> 00:25:04,600
Speaker 1: you want to check out some more of what we're

466
00:25:04,640 --> 00:25:07,239
Speaker 1: doing out there on the Internet, you can do so

467
00:25:07,320 --> 00:25:09,360
Speaker 1: at Stuff to Blow your Mind. Yes, Stuff to Blow

468
00:25:09,400 --> 00:25:11,120
Speaker 1: your Mind dot com. You can also check us out

469
00:25:11,160 --> 00:25:14,160
Speaker 1: on social media. We're on tumbler one, on Twitter, We're

470
00:25:14,160 --> 00:25:17,960
Speaker 1: on Facebook, We're on Google Plus, um and uh. You

471
00:25:17,960 --> 00:25:20,160
Speaker 1: can also find us on YouTube where remind Stuff show

472
00:25:20,400 --> 00:25:22,320
Speaker 1: and Julie. Where else can they find us? Well, they

473
00:25:22,359 --> 00:25:24,879
Speaker 1: can send an email to blow the mind at discovery

474
00:25:24,960 --> 00:25:31,240
Speaker 1: dot com for more on this and thousands of other

475
00:25:31,280 --> 00:25:40,360
Speaker 1: topics because it how stuff works dot com. Audible dot

476
00:25:40,359 --> 00:25:43,280
Speaker 1: com is the leading provider of downloadable digital audio books

477
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478
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479
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