The Cool Science of Snowflakes in 4 Minutes, with Brian Cox

From the Roy­al Soci­ety comes a short primer on snowflakes. Nar­rat­ed by physi­cist Bri­an Cox, the video explains how they form, and why no two snowflakes have the exact same dimen­sions. It also recounts how Johannes Kepler devel­oped a ground­break­ing the­o­ry about the hexag­o­nal shape of snowflakes in 1611–one proved right 400 years lat­er. And then comes the kick­er: snowflakes aren’t actu­al­ly white; they’re clear.

Along the way, Cox ref­er­ences the first pho­tographs of snowflakes. You can find our post on those 1885 pho­tographs here.

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via Aeon

Relat­ed Con­tent 

The First Pho­tographs of Snowflakes: Dis­cov­er the Ground­break­ing Micropho­tog­ra­phy of Wil­son “Snowflake” Bent­ley (1885)

Johannes Kepler The­o­rized That Each Plan­et Sings a Song, Each in a Dif­fer­ent Voice: Mars is a Tenor; Mer­cury, a Sopra­no; and Earth, an Alto

Prof. Bri­an Cox Has a Mad­den­ing Con­ver­sa­tion with a Cli­mate Sci­ence-Deny­ing Politi­cian