Observing Snowflakes

The past few days in Minnesota have been something out of a winter wonder land. That is, if you don’t mind the snow still coming down in March.

For me, I didn’t mind. The temperature was in perfect balance that allowed fluffy snow to fall from the sky but was warm enough where the snowy fluff would disappear once it came in contact with the road. It was beautiful without the annoyance of snowy roads!

I’ve always had an adoration for quiet, fluffy, snow days. I realized during this snow day that I had thrifted book on snowflakes that I had yet to open.

It was a perfect opportunity to explore the pages of snowflakes. I found beautiful photos of snowflakes and wonderful quotes in the book.

Did you know no snowflake is the same but all snowflakes have six sides? I learned that “the ice crystals that make up snowflakes are symmetrical (or patterned) because they reflect the internal order of the crystal’s water molecules as they arrange themselves in predetermined spaces (known as “crystallization”) to form a six-sided snowflake”.

The general form of a snowflake takes the shape of a hexagon. I’ve come to notice that Nature likes to uses hexagons in her design, like beeswax, eyes of insects, and even in certain types of minerals - why is that?

With a little bit of Googling, I found a fascinating article that explores Nature’s use of hexagons - Why Nature Prefers Hexagons. In a brief overview, hexagons require the least total length of wall compared to triangles or squares of the same area, leading to the least amount of energy needed to form the shape. For example, bees use hexagonal wax cells to minimize their labor and wax. Laws of physics seems to prefer the three-way junctions of hexagon walls because it provides the smallest surface area possible too.

Since the hexagons seem to be Nature’s strongest building block, I considered how the form of hexagon could improve the experience for certain products. I considered changing the shape of bricks to hexagons instead of rectangles, making the base of drinking glass to be hexagons to remove awkward empty space in cabinets, and changing storage units to hexagons instead of squares to improve strength while using minimal material.