Snowflakes have been around for as long as anyone can remember, so basically from the beginning of time. Before the early and mid 1800's it was a common belief that snowflakes were just little blobs or specks of snow that had no apparent beauty or mathematical significance. This was not necessarily an incorrect way of thinking, but is was more of the fact that the human race did not care enough or want to put in any effort to learn more about snowflakes. Except for one man: Wilson A. Bentley.
Wilson A. Bentley was born in the year 1865 in the town of Jericho, Vermont where he was raised on a family farm. This farm was located in what the people of Vermont called the "Snowbelt". The "Snowbelt" got its name from having an anual snowfall of around 120 inches. That's about 10 feet of snow every year! Bentley had a fascination with many things in nature. He found interest in the leaves of the trees, the beauty of butterflies, spider webs, and rain and dew drops. His fascination in rain drops is what lead him to his peaked curiosity of water crystallization which further lead him to snowflakes and their structure.
When Bentley turned fifteen years old, he was given a microscope for his birthday. This was the moment when he took his first up close look of a snowflake and its sturcture and discovered the true beauty that snowflakes had. After his findings, Bentley tried repeatedly to get others to see and apprecieate what he saw. However, no one cared enough nor could see the beauty like he could. There was not any other way for him to share what he found without his microscope. In addition, the snow would melt so quickly that he did not have the time to set it up for someone else to see while trying to persuade them to just take a look. Determined to share, Bentley found a way to capture snowflakes before they melted then would last forever, using photography.
A few years later, Bentley's parents gifted him a camera for his 17th birthday. Bentley worked around the clock to find a way to take a picture of his snowflakes. "After many failed attempts at drawing the details of the snowflakes, he connected his camera to [his] microscope in order to create photos that showed intricate details of each snow crystal"8. It was not until 1885 (three years later) that he finally took his first photograph of a snowflake. After this success, Bentley would spend hours and hours in the family barn collecting snow on a little panel covered in black fabric, picking out the snowflakes, with a turkey feather, that had not yet broken and were not stuck to one another so he could photograph them.
Within all of his lifetime, Bentley photographed a little over 5,300 snowflakes; none of which were the exact same. Some would look very similar to others (we'll learn more about this later), but Bentley noted that there was one thing in common between all snowflakes: they each had six identical sections, with some minor imperfections from section to section (History of Snowflake Bentley found in the Smithsonian Institution Archives)8. This structure pattern is related to a mathematical concept known today as Fractal Geometry.
This video is the reading of a children's book about Snowflake Bentley. Many of his pictures are now stowed in the Smithsonian archives.
Continue the journey into Fractal Geometry.
Fractal Geometry History