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The symmetry of Snowflakes.

krd · 2011-10-11 03:13:55

I was curious so I searched an found this answer in Scientific American. http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=why-are-snowflakes-symmet The growth of snowflakes (or of any substance changing from a liquid to a solid state) is known as crystallization. During this process, the molecules (in this case, water…

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11-10-2011 4:13am

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krd

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I was curious so I searched an found this answer in Scientific American.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=why-are-snowflakes-symmet

The growth of snowflakes (or of any substance changing from a liquid to a solid state) is known as crystallization. During this process, the molecules (in this case, water molecules) align themselves to maximize attractive forces and minimize repulsive ones. As a result, the water molecules arrange themselves in predetermined spaces and in a specific arrangement.

This process is much like tiling a floor in accordance with a specific pattern: once the pattern is chosen and the first tiles are placed, then all the other tiles must go in predetermined spaces in order to maintain the pattern of symmetry.

Is the tiling theory correct?

Or is it possible, that the forming crystals have some kind of field effect that influences the symmetry of the snowflake? I could think of reasons why the tiling idea could be wrong.

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