Flake Appreciation Day

The pattern of each snowflake is unique, because nature has inexhaustible imagination and limitless imagination Therefore, fingerprints and patterns on the skin of a giraffe or jaguar are unique Ice crystals, which take the form of hexagons or plates, have long been of interest to scientists Many of them devoted their entire lives to the study of snowflakes Romantics glorify them in verse, calling them the frozen happiness of water, and compare them to pearls and crystal December 18 is a funny and at the same time touching Snowflake Appreciation Day Flake Appreciation Day is celebrated both in Russia and abroad This is interesting: The largest snowfields in history were recorded in 1944 in Moscow Each of them was the size of a palm and resembled ostrich feathers Snowflakes as a miracle of nature were sung in the poems of AS Pushkin, NA Nekrasov, KD Balmont, SA Yesenin and RI Christmas One of the first scientists to study ice crystals was the mathematician Johannes Kepler In 1611 he published the work "New Year's Gift, or About Hexagonal Snowflakes" Their form was first described in history by the French philosopher Rene Descartes Thanks to the invention of the microscope, physicist Robert Hooke was not only able to explore the snowfields, but also publish the book “Micrography” with their drawings in 1665 This is interesting: A snowflake is made up of 1018 water molecules Therefore, the probability of the appearance of its copy, in which the arrangement of deuterium atoms (hydrogen isotopes) will be the same, even with an identical arrangement of water molecules, is reduced to zero The first successful photograph of a snowflake appeared in 1885 It was taken by American farmer Wilson Bentley (1865–1931) He called this miracle of nature, studied through a microscope, “snow jewels” Over the course of his life, Bentley took about 5,000 photographs of snowflakes Jewelers and artists used them as samples for their works 2,500 photographs were published in the 1931 book Snow Crystals In Russia, Andrei Andreevich Sigson, who lived at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, was photographing them He managed to capture about 200 forms of “ice stars” The first scientist to learn how to grow them in the laboratory was the Japanese Ukihiro Nakaya The result of his work was the 1954 book “Snow Crystals: Natural and Artificial” This is interesting: Scientists of the 20th century found that prayer has a positive effect on the structure of water After reading sacred texts from the Bible or the Koran, ice crystals, previously shapeless and chaotic, begin to take on a regular and symmetrical heptagon shape Light and winged, fluffy and lacy snowflakes delight the eye every winter and warm the soul with their pristine beauty They inspire creative people who write poems and songs about “crystal stars”, “snow diamonds” and “silver pieces of ice” Everyone who appreciates the beauty of pristine nature, who is not alien to the small joys of life, celebrates Snowflake Appreciation Day on December 18th