Are there two identical snowflakes in the world?

Every winter, people living in the north can see snow scenes, have snowball fights and make snowmen, which is a beautiful memory. Snowflakes are as beautiful as white dancing elves. Do you know what shape snowflakes are? Snowflake, really like a flower, has six corners and is symmetrical in shape. Every snowflake looks the same. Are all snowflakes this shape? Are there two identical snowflakes?

Yes, there are basically no two identical snowflakes in the world. Similar to human fingerprints. Every snowflake is different. To know why, I'm afraid you have to figure out how snowflakes form first. To form snowflakes, several conditions must be met. First of all, it should be cold. The atmospheric temperature must be low enough, below zero, and there must be water molecules in the air. Driven by cold air, water molecules condense around small particles layer by layer.

There are many kinds of small particles, such as dust and pollen particles, on which ice crystals will slowly condense and form. When suspended in the atmosphere, more water molecules will attach to ice crystals. The chemical properties of water molecules themselves determine that they will extend in six directions to form a regular hexagon. Then these ice cores collide with each other, thus forming a larger ice group. This is snowflake.

Dust, pollen or other things, these initial substances are different, so that snowflakes are destined to be unique from birth. Just as everyone is different at birth, they are all unique. Snowflakes are no exception. Each snowflake contains about 19 to the tenth power of water molecules. So many water molecules, they have almost countless arrangements, so? It is unlikely that there will be two identical snowflakes.

It is very difficult for so many water molecules to arrange in the same formation. Finally, if you want to get two identical snowflakes, you need to have exactly the same forming conditions. In nature, this is basically impossible. Why? Each snowflake has a slightly different path from the sky to the ground, and the atmospheric conditions encountered along the way will be different. For example, these hexagonal crystals will be different in different humidity environments. When the humidity is low, that is, dry air will promote the growth of hexagonal surface. When the humidity is high, it will promote the growth of sharp edges. If there is more water vapor, the crystal will grow faster. It also makes the shape more complicated, so each snowflake is really unique.