[HN Gopher] The First Photographs of Snowflakes Discover the Gro...
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       The First Photographs of Snowflakes Discover the Groundbreaking
       Microphotography (2017)
        
       Author : _____k
       Score  : 86 points
       Date   : 2025-12-18 21:58 UTC (7 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.openculture.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.openculture.com)
        
       | Forgeties79 wrote:
       | What a great Christmas post. The images are very impressive too!
        
       | HelloUsername wrote:
       | (2017)
        
         | RobotCaleb wrote:
         | (1885)
        
       | srean wrote:
       | Once I had ended up with beautiful snowflakes and crystalline
       | layers, entirely by accident.
       | 
       | I had been washing a bowl in steaming hot water when I got
       | interrupted. So, I did what everyone does when they cannot find
       | an appropriate place for what they have on their hands.
       | 
       | I slapped the empty steaming bowl shut (it came with an airtight
       | lid), put it away in the freezer, the nearest thing that looked
       | like a cabinet with a door, and promptly forgot about it.
       | 
       | A few weeks later I found that both the bowl and the lid were
       | covered with exquisite layers of crystals. I tried hard to
       | photograph them, just did not come out right.
       | 
       | I kept the crystals for many months.
        
       | mpalmer wrote:
       | The retitling is a mess
        
       | deadbabe wrote:
       | Are the design of snowflakes a thin slice of some 3D shape
       | defined by a mathematical function?
        
         | thdrtol wrote:
         | The tetrahedral shape of the molecules define the 6 sides. I
         | believe that would be a constant.
         | 
         | Temperature, moisture, pressure and maybe more variables are
         | the parameters.
        
       | block_dagger wrote:
       | The headline does not match the article title and is currently
       | nonsensical.
        
         | _____k wrote:
         | Enforcement of character limit for the header got it place. I
         | did not want to alter it too much either.
        
           | nutjob2 wrote:
           | The article title is written as a title and subtitle,
           | separated by a colon.
           | 
           | So the correct title of the article is 'The First Photographs
           | of Snowflakes'.
        
             | _____k wrote:
             | Oh yes, it looks like I missed the colon during the edit.
        
         | tjr wrote:
         | I might have said that I didn't realize snowflakes took
         | photographs, but it turns out to be the work of Wilson
         | "Snowflake" Bentley, so I guess in this case, they do.
        
           | ryukoposting wrote:
           | I think I see your reading, but I'd add an apostrophe:
           | 
           | The First Photographs of Snowflake's Discover the
           | Groundbreaking Microphotography
           | 
           | i.e. the first photographs on Snowflake's part. Though that
           | still doesn't resolve how a guy's pictures discovered
           | microphotography, rather than the guy himself.
        
       | opello wrote:
       | Also worth checking out the Veritasium video on snowflakes:
       | 
       | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ao2Jfm35XeE
        
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       (page generated 2025-12-25 23:00 UTC)