Snowflakes

As a kid when I thought of snowflakes I pictured these tiny specs of white flakes that had immense detail and that when compared to one another where very different. Each snowflake when examined closely seemed like a complete foreign object. It astounded me how this detail and precision could make up a snowflake. We all have a perceived idea of what a snowflake looks like whether it is from a drawing or snowflake decorations on a Christmas tree, but this perceived idea changes when you experience snowfall for the very first time.

It wasn’t until I was twelve that I got to experience my first snowfall. For me this was a major event that changed the way I imagined snowflakes. I expected these to be beautiful ice crystals that were carved with such detail that no one could recreate them. Instead what I saw where these tiny specs of ice shavings that all looked the same. When one sees a snowflake falling form the sky it looks like a very simple object. It made me wonder why I imagined snowflakes to be so complex. As I stuck my tongue out to catch a snowflake I felt a cool sensation hit my tongue. This tasteless spec of ice cooled my mouth and melted inside.

It was later that I realized that to see the real structure of a snowflake I would have to see it through a microscope. The microscopic image of a snowflake is actually where most of the designs of snowflakes come from. Although at first sight a snowflake looks simple, when observed through a microscope one can see that it is a fairly complex object. The snowflake is made up of lines and geometric shapes that are part of a bigger design.  So my perceived idea of what a snowflake looked like was not too far from what it actually looks like when viewed under a microscope. This just goes to show you that what you see can sometimes deceive you into thinking something else.