What is Digg?64 Comments
- herrshuster, on 10/12/2007, -2/+35your soul, probably
- samadam, on 10/12/2007, -10/+37Jesus tells them to.
- LemurHorde, on 10/12/2007, -1/+18http://www.its.caltech.edu/~atomic/snowcrystals/photos/photos.htm
This researcher/photographer at Caltech has some excellent pictures of snowflakes as well.
He also grows them in a diffusion chamber for study. Here are some details on the machine:
http://www.its.caltech.edu/~atomic/snowcrystals/designer1/designer1.htm - cmyk, on 10/12/2007, -1/+14You know how many of those I've shoveled in my lifetime?
- nepawoods, on 10/12/2007, -1/+13One thing I never understood about snowflakes: If they are all so different, how do the six arms of a single snowflake manage to look so much alike? How do they "coordinate"?
- thetaco82, on 10/12/2007, -1/+11Here you go: http://www.labx.com/v2/newad.cfm?CatID=19
- nofxjunkee, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8They probably keep it cold enough to stay frozen. Good thing I'm a rocket scientist! ;-) ... Jokes aside that's just my guess and it very well could be wrong.
- tacojohn48, on 10/12/2007, -2/+10I want a camera with a zoom like that. How much do you think that would cost me?
- cualcrees, on 10/12/2007, -4/+12Damn! I sold my soul for $5! Now if I could only get that piece of paper back....
- Mousse, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow
"There are, broadly, two possible explanations for the symmetry of snowflakes. Firstly, there could be communication or information transfer between the arms, such that growth in each arm affects the growth in each other arm. Surface tension or phonons are among the ways that such communication could occur.
The other explanation, which appears to be the prevalent view, is that the arms of a snowflake grow independently in an environment that is believed to be rapidly varying in temperature, humidity and other atmospheric conditions. This environment is believed to be relatively spatially homogeneous on the scale of a single flake, leading to the arms growing to a high level of visual similarity by responding in identical ways to identical conditions, much in the same way that unrelated trees respond to environmental changes by growing near-identical sets of tree rings. The difference in the environment in scales larger than a snowflake leads to the observed lack of correlation between the shapes of different snowflakes." - TheWorm, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8It's so hard to believe when you look at them with the naked eye how pretty and individual they are up close. The design is so perfect but you can't really even see it.
- kevinmotel, on 10/12/2007, -3/+10actually it came out of a cloud
- biff198, on 10/12/2007, -2/+8@jstromme:
Of course it is evolution. As snowflakes come to be, they reproduce with other snowflakes. The flakes with the most similar arms are the most appealing to the opposite sex, and thus, after millions of year, only snowflakes with similar ams can be found.
< /stupidity > - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -6/+12http://www.duggmirror.com
- lorensingley, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7It is because of slight variations in the way the 3 molecule H2O atoms bond to each other. The variation of the way the first few molecules bond to each other determines the the ever changing mutations of the pattern of the snowflake.
- Santabot, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6truly amazing, thank you for that.
- TheGuy20, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6Remember Alf? He's back, in POG FORM.
- Deku, on 10/12/2007, -2/+7Its hard to imagine something that small is formed millions of times and its so beuatiful.
- selrahc, on 10/12/2007, -1/+617,189,431,191,622?
- lorensingley, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5I meant to say 3 atom H2O molecules.
- cmyk, on 10/12/2007, -4/+8*****. My balls do that every day.
And it's BEAUTIFUL. - Garda, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6http://duggmirror.com/environment/Amazing_Snowflake_magnified_from_93x_36000x_in_8_increments/LT-SEM_snow_crystal_magnification_series-3.jpg
for anyone who turned off referrals in firefox like i did
the thing that gets me about these is that they're really geometrical and very much look like they're man made. It's almost creepy in that way. - DeepSkyDiver, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Is that ... yes! If you look at the one with the highest magnification, just above the central ridge, there it is as clear as a bell: WMD
- biff198, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3SOMEDAY, you will be able to go to the store and see ads like
"New Kodak EasyShare, 10 megapixels and 32,000x optical Zoom!" - yournamehere, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4no, that's the Marathon logo... Bungie is at it again
- mapkinase, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I am a physicist and I still do not get it (admitting that I thought about it actually for the last 5 sec). It is supposed to be a stochastic process (since it involves so many molecules of "dihydrogen monoxide", :-), how come it is so symmetrical. Need to google.
- simpleid, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3I can see details in the 3rd image that I could see in the first, It's unfortunate our instruments don't allow for a far more dramatic zoom difference for deeper contrast between various states of magnification.
I'd like to see 1m -> 0.0001 -> 0.00000001, that would be more impressive to me.
I understand it's a limitation of our technology which dictates just how far 'down' we can go and that's just too bad. This may be technically impressive, but it's not in terms of visual contrast between shots. So in order to enhance the effect, it would appear more dramatic to show half the number of zooms and allow for a larger gap between them.
This way we as people perceive a 'great magnification' and it will be only more impressive.
That's just my thought. I guess what I'm trying to say is I don't like how it's presented to me, but I do appreciate what it shows. - Iandefor, on 10/12/2007, -6/+8Months in boot camp.
These same snowflakes are also trained in how to kill a man in 20 different ways.
:-P. - Karmalary, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3127.0.0.1? Oh wait...
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Anyone having issues loading it, can get it here: http://images.michaelohare.net/snowflake.jpg
- JeffBoyaredi, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1The Caltech prof is the one who took the pics for this year's US stamps:
http://preview.tinyurl.com/yxvlvs
I just heard talk about it in this podcast...kind of cool:
http://www.wsst.org/labtable.asp?newsID=246#1 - nepawoods, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1your definition of random is wrong
- DJosephDesign, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Anyone aware of a TIFF edition of this?
- KingLeo, on 10/12/2007, -3/+4God is truly an amazing artist.
- webphreak, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2biff: I doubt that too be honest, the mega pixel is right but that zoom is pretty much useless cause like the tiniest movement would be like 200km of where you were looking (if you were using it for distance rather than macro)
- kdehead, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1mind blowing. it looks so , err, "designed", and yet it isnt.
- Zippo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Amazing how science and nature work, isn't it?
- mapkinase, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Short hint: the variation for N is sqrt(N), relative variation is 1/sqrt(N). N being in the order of magnitude of 10^15-10^20 makes this relative number very small. Uniform temperature and humidity conditions on the scale of size of the snowflake lead to exactly the same speed of precipitation of snow. Those two things lead to similarity in shape of different beams of snowflake.
Nicht sprachen "me" to "myself"... - superal1394, on 10/12/2007, -3/+4http://www.duggmirror.com
- Bega, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1was reading time's best pictures thing today, and I've gotta say this is the best picture I've seen all day.
- otheruser, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Awesome.
- nitsuj, on 10/12/2007, -3/+3"why do you digg me down? are you trying to hide from the fact there are many things in the bible that you cant deny..."
You're being dug down for your bizarre attempt at reconciling your bible material with this article. It's not that there's anything to deny - it's just completely irrelevant.
Let's look a bit further in Job: "38:37 Who can number the clouds in wisdom? or who can stay the bottles of heaven,"
Which talks about 'bottles' in heaven and counting clouds!
The whole of Job is a strange rant with gems like this: "39:20 Canst thou make him afraid as a grasshopper? the glory of his nostrils is terrible."
What the hell is that supposed to mean? Nostrils?
In any case this is off topic BUT I have to thank you for pointing me in the direction of the following excerpt which I hadn't noticed before:
"39:10 Canst thou bind the unicorn with his band in the furrow? or will he harrow the valleys after thee?"
Unicorns! If only it were pink... - dsfox, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2I think this is one of the great mysteries of crystallography. Crystals form by molecules attaching themselves to a lattice. How can a molecule attaching, say, to the upper left arm of the snowflake know where the molecules in a lower right arm are attaching themselves so it can match the pattern?
- Hubajube, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0@Teaboy
Here's one solution--super glue:
http://www.popsci.com/popsci/how20/e5fb1e4e0fca9010vgnvcm1000004eecbccdrcrd.html
I imagine that for deep-zoom photographs like the ones in the FPP they'd just shoot at - MissElliot1978, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2My goodness. Why does every science article on digg provoke an evolution debate? Even the ones that are relatively far removed from the debate? And why does the debate even continue here? No one on either side is going to convince the other side. It is just two completely different ways of looking at the world.
- cockmaster, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1i think you're trying to push buttons, but a line like that speaks volumes about the simple way you view things.
- 47f0, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0I thought it was some sort of magic crystal fractal action going on from the seed - as it turns out - I'm wrong (dammit, that's twice in the last decade!)
http://www.its.caltech.edu/~atomic/snowcrystals/faqs/faqs.htm - Jolene, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1Man, this almost looks like something from a science fiction film.
- AhmedB, on 10/12/2007, -6/+4The symmetry and beauty in these flakes is priceless!!!!! Just shows you that the earth and environment are not 'random'.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -4/+2why do you digg me down? are you trying to hide from the fact there are many things in the bible that you cant deny...
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