Allegation:
No two snowflakes are alike.
Evaluation:
A recent post on the r/answers subreddit cast doubt on an age-old fact, asking whether it is “actually possible that no two snowflakes can be the same.” — a reference to the claim that no two snowflakes are exactly alike:
What does science say about this oft-repeated fact? In short, this scale is important when making claims about how similar two objects might be.
On a visual level, you can create snowflakes that look almost identical with expensive laboratory equipment. At the molecular level, the probability of two identical snowflakes forming is so astronomically low that it is considered impossible.
How Are Snowflakes Formed?
The website features Kenneth G. Libbrecht, Chairman of the Department of Physics at the California Institute of Technology, and a well-known snowflake. photographerexplains that within a cloud, small changes in the microenvironment around a snowflake affect its shape. This is because these changes force the snowflake to switch between two different crystallizations. processes – outcropping and branching.
Faceting, the simpler of the two processes, produces six-sided prisms thanks to the atomic structure of frozen water molecules. The formation of these hexagonal prisms gives snowflakes their famous six-sided symmetry.
Simple hexagonal prisms produced by faceting. Credit: snowflakes.com.
Branching produces chaotic features extending away from the growing hexagonal prisms; Branching occurs because the corners of these prisms attract crystallizing water vapor faster than flat surfaces:
Basic example of branching. Credit: snowflakes.com.
Libbrecht explains that the repeated transition between these two crystal growth modes ultimately determines a snowflake’s properties:
As it passes through the clouds, the crystal is exposed to ever-changing temperatures and humidity, with each change causing the arms to grow slightly differently. The exact shape of the final snow crystal is determined by the exact path it takes through the clouds. However, all six branches followed the same path and therefore each experienced the same changes at the same time.
There Can Be Two Snowflakes To look Do You Love Each Other?
Using full-controlled Libbrecht created numerous “designer snowflakes” under temperature and humidity conditions in his Caltech lab and was even able to control the final shape to some degree. Using this technology, he produced the following snowflakes, which he calls “identical twins”:
Leibrich said via email that he describes these similar-looking stamps as “identical twins” because, like human twins, “They are quite similar in appearance, but not *exactly* the same.” Although it may seem qualitatively similar, this similarity breaks down as you start looking at smaller and smaller scales. Librecht said:
Visually, under the microscope you can tell that they are essentially the same. But when you look at the molecular level, you see that they are far from the same. So if you want to talk about identical snowflakes, you need to define exactly what you mean by identical snowflakes.
Therefore, it is conceivable to have two snowflakes. To look are the same, but this is far from being identical at the molecular level. So the notion of two snowflakes being “similar” depends on how the term is defined.
What’s Happening at the Molecular Level?
Liebrich told us that, at the molecular level, given the infinite number of ways to create a snowflake, the probability of two snowflakes forming the same way is mathematically impossible:
The number of possible ways to arrange branches and side branches is much, much, much greater than even the total number of snowflakes falling on the Earth.
In addition to the impossibility of two exactly identical microenvironments for two snowflakes to grow outside the laboratory, the chemical building blocks that make up the snowflake are probably not 100 percent identical. This is because a small fraction of oxygen and hydrogen isotopes exist in nature that are slightly heavier than their more common forms. The idea that abnormal water molecules consisting of these heavier atoms can be found in the same place as two different flakes is both impossible to prove and unreasonable to accept.
What Does It Mean to Be the Same?
The question of whether two objects can be literally identical has a rich history in both philosophy and theoretical physics. Many philosophers argue that the problem of identical snowflakes is meaningless, since no two objects (not even atoms) can be truly the same.
This claim popular It is a law that is referred to as “Leibniz’s Law” and is used powerfully. discussed Philosophical question in various forms for centuries. While the concept applies to anything considered an object, snowflakes provide a compelling way to illustrate the implausibility of objects that are indistinguishable from reality; Because even though they are all made of water molecules, each snowflake individually produces extremely intricate and complex patterns.
The visual similarity between snowflakes can only be superficially achieved under highly controlled laboratory conditions. Therefore, we consider the claim that no two snowflakes are alike to be true.
Resources:
Forrest, Peter. “The Identity of the Indistinguishables.” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Winter 2016.
Libbrecht, Kenneth G. “Snowflake Science” snowflakes.com. Access date: 18 December 2017.
Libbrecht, Kenneth G. “An Experimental Device for Observing Deterministic Structure Formation in On-Plate Ice Crystal Growth.” snowflakes.com. Access date: 18 December 2017.
caltech.edu. “The Feynman Lectures Chapter 4: Identical Particles” accessed December 18, 2017.
Saunders, Simon. “Physics and Leibniz Principles” Symmetries in Physics: Philosophical Reflections. 2003.