As far as I understand by just reading the article, some mathematicians at UC Davis and the University of Wisconsin in Madison have created a computer program that can create actual models of snowflakes that you could find in nature. I'm not exactly sure what goes into making a snowflake in nature, but you need water vapor and a particle (dust or dirt) for the water vapor to attach and freeze onto. Apparently there's a mathematical science behind that process that scientists and mathematicians are still figuring out. So basically this computer program uses its knowledge of crystallization and factors like temperature, atmospheric pressure, and water vapor density and runs the program under different variations of the about factors and lets scientists see what types of snowflakes can be created under those circumstances. It takes 24 hours to create just one snowflake on a regular desktop computer like we have. They found similarities amongst the snowflake that were made and the ones found in nature, like ones that were rare in nature are also rare on the program and viseversa. The creators had some fun and made some novelty snowflake. One they called the "Butterflake" which looks like 3 butterflies stuck together at the body, I quote "there seemed to be no reason these shapes could not appear in nature, but they would be very fragile and unstable."
I think this is cool because I haven't really heard much about there being a math behind how snowflakes are formed but obviously there is. I don't really see a daily purpose for wanting to know what types of snowflakes form in what conditions, but I guess it's like a hobby for the benefit of science.
http://www.news.ucdavis.edu/search/news_detail.lasso?id=8489
Monday, January 28, 2008
Math Models Snowflakes
Posted by Nick M at 3:51 PM
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4 comments:
this is a really cool and informative blog!
i learned a lot from reading it. all i knew was that snowflakes were complicated, but i had no idea just how much went into making those little buggers. its amazing to think about how something so unique and difficult to reproduce can be made so seemingly easy and in such quantity in nature.
It's kind of weird how we study such seemingly pointless things but i guess in order for us to understand the bigger ideas we have to start small in order to build up to them. I didn't know all that stuff went into creating snowflakes either and it's kind of unbelievable how nature is able to create such intricate and beautiful designs because of different chemical equations. That's impressive.
Sweet. I think it's cool that computers can simulate an actual snowflake in nature. It would be cool to see the model being built on a supercomputer. On that note, at the U of M, have an insanely huge supercomputer, it's like 20 top of the line giant-sized desktops all working in parallel, doing the same task in unison to speed it up by a factor of like a billion (not really but still) And they have these 32 inch comp screens- its tight. And by the way, this is rather random rambling.
Yes nick Fireworks are legal, I think any type except for m-80's which are illegal anywhere. But yah my 4th of July's are insane my whole neighborhood would stock up, and we would blow stuff up, fire crackers in gutters, you know, Fun stuff.
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