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by purplerox on October 10th, 2009

purplerox

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How is it possible that each snowflake is a diffrent shape? I mean millions of them fall there have to be some that look the same.

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Answers. 3 helpful answers below.

  • by Merfish on October 10th, 2009

    Merfish

    In her book, Gosnell cites snow scientist Charles Knight at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado. Knight estimates there are 10,000,000,000,000,000,000 water molecules in a typical snow crystal.

    "The way they can arrange themselves is almost infinite," Gosnell said.

    And, she adds, David Phillips, the senior climatologist with Environment Canada, has estimated that the number of snowflakes that have fallen on Earth over the course of time is 10 followed by 34 zeros.

    "So, you know, nobody can say for absolute certain," Gosnell said.

    "But I think experts are in agreement the likelihood of two being identical is next to impossible."


    http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/02/070213-snowflake_2.html

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  • by HasntBeen on October 10th, 2009

    HasntBeen

    Merfish gets it right: http://www.answerbag.com/a_view/7957790

    Basically, the number of possible configurations is so incredibly large that even with the vast number of snowflakes that have fallen, there is no guarantee that two have been identical. This is surprising mainly because we have limited capacity to conceive such vast numbers.

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  • by HuskyLove on October 10th, 2009

    HuskyLove

    I think that tons of them are the same.

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