WILD NEW JERSEY: USA Today: Investigating the hows and whys of snowflakes

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WILD NEW JERSEY: USA Today: Investigating the hows and whys of snowflakes

USA Today: Investigating the hows and whys of snowflakes

Photo Credit: Erica Marshall

Consider the iconic six-sided snowflake: lacy, fluffy and the subject of interpretation by millions of children aided only by folded paper and scissors. Although the ground is covered in them in many parts of the country throughout winter, perfect, six-sided symmetrical snow crystals are rare and the physics of how they grow is ill-understood.

That growth pattern, involving ever-sharper edges of water crystals, is described in a recent paper in the journal Materials Science by Caltech physics professor Kenneth Libbrecht, who has spent much of his career feeding the public's endless fascination with the beauty and mystery of snowflakes.