Snowflake Man's Vindication

We were talking the other day about Wilson Alwyn "Snowflake Man" Bentley and how on that day, in 1885, he'd taken the first picture of a snowflake. Well, it seems there's a fellow named Kenneth G. Libbrecht at CalTech who's chairman of the physics department there, and he's extremely fond of snowflakes (he calls them "snow crystals") too. And it turns out that Bentley's intuition was right—the science and the math suggest that at least as far as those fancy ones go, there really are no two snowflakes alike, and never will be. It charms me about people, that they like that idea so much, and I'm pleased it's true, for myself and for dear old odd Mr. Bentley too. It's supposed to snow today, and it'll be a pleasure to think about it all.