Not to steal Cameron’s post from yesterday, but in addition to studying snowflakes, physicist Kenneth Libbrecht has published a number of books of snowflake pictures.  These are very good quality “coffee-table books” and make nice Christmas gifts.

You can poke around his site to learn the answers to questions like:

• Why are snowflakes symmetric?  (They aren’t, exactly, but are close because all six arms are exposed to nearly the same conditions at the same time.)
• Is it true that no two snowflakes are alike?  (Basically yes.)
• Why are no two snowflakes alike?  (As each snowflake swirls around on a chaotic path to the ground, it experiences a different sequence of temperature/humidity conditions than every other snowflake, leading to a unique pattern of growth.)

I’ll have to try some snowflake pictures myself this winter.  If it works, I’ll let you know (but it is apparently tricky to get right).

For other science-geek Christmas present ideas, try:

Puzzle Master

Grand Illusions (I haven’t bought from them, but they have some cool looking stuff)

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