why do snowflakes form in the patterns that they do?
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Think of the snowflake as a tiny floating sticky square in the sky. That’s how it looks before it’s born. A split second later the wind blows a certain way and sticky dust comes by to stick itself to the 4 corners of the square. Now it’s starting to grow into a +. Another second later an even bigger gust comes by with more dust, and now each side of the + gets thicker, looking like a ☩. This repeats on and on– because it’s tiny, each corner of the square experiences the same exact conditions, growing thicker or thinner, as it’s being born. That’s why it’s symmetrical. Other squares nearby feel slightly different conditions, so they look different.
Now instead of a square this is actually a bunch of atoms that form a 6 sided hexagon shape. And instead of it gathering dust, think of it as collecting ice (freezing) over time.
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