How do we really know that no two snowflakes are ever alike?
In: Planetary Science
Iirc a photographer found a 2nd snowflake that was identical to one he shot previously.
It’s like DNA, sure it’s possible that out there among the billions of humans there’s another with same sequence. But out of trillions of combos???
Imagine everyone in the audience at a show taking out a coin, holding it with the heads facing up, and then flipping the coin. Whatever is the result of the coin flip, for everyone in the audience, in the order of their seats, is like a unique snowflake.
Maybe one side has all heads, the other has all tails, a mix on the second floor, just one head in the front row, etc. etc. The resulting pattern is a unique snowflake.
Now have everyone reset back to holding it with the heads facing up and flip the coin again. The odds of everyone getting the exact same result is nearly impossible. It is *potentially* possible, but the chance it will happen again is very, *very* low.
It’s the same with snowflakes. Ice particles form in predictable patterns, like flipping a coin. However, there are so many factors to consider when the ice is forming. It’s the same action, like flipping a coin, but there are so many tiny things that can change the outcome.
Great YouTube video on this
why are snowflakes like this
(https://youtu.be/ao2Jfm35XeE?si=S1iN0NqpfX0y-H9F)
The same way we “know” two decks of cards have never been shuffled the same way (http://www.murderousmaths.co.uk/cardperms.htm).
It isn’t truly impossible, but the math says it is exceedingly unlikely.
They say there’s no two snowflakes on Earth exactly the same. No two molecular compositions. No two crystalline structures. But do they know that for sure? Because they would have to get every snowflake together in one huge space and obviously that’s not possible, even with computers. And not only that, they’d have to get all the snowflakes that’ve ever fallen, not just the ones now. So they got no proof. They got nothing.
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