In physics, symmetry and the loss or breaking of symmetry refers to states of change. A perfect snowflake is rotationally symmetrical because each iteration in its pattern around the circle remains ...

(SOUTHERN COLORADO) — Sometimes when it snows we’ll get those picturesque flakes. However, other times, it seems like it’s just pellets falling from the sky. So what gives? Why is there a difference ...

Jason Benedict studies crystals — materials whose atoms and molecules arrange themselves in an orderly pattern when in a solid state. Snowflakes fall under this category. Each one that tumbles from ...

Snow--we love to talk about it, watch it, play in it when there's an accumulation and yes, enjoy that snow day because of it. Whether you like snow or not, many of probably still wonder how those ...

Whether they're tickling your nose, hugging your eyelashes or melting on your tongue, few winter wonders are as fascinating ...

It is 94 degrees outside Ken Libbrecht’s Caltech lab. Inside, within refrigerated coolers, tanks and glass boxes, it is a cool 5 degrees, and Libbrecht is busy making snowflakes. For the past 16 years ...

We've all heard that each and every snowflake is unique. We've all heard that each and every snowflake is unique. But in a lab in sunny southern California, a physicist has learned to control the way ...

Microscopic image of snowflakes Image via US Dept. of Agriculture We’ve all heard the old assertion that no two snowflakes are alike. But is this statement really accurate? Since we haven’t seen every ...

It wasn’t until Kenneth Libbrecht moved to decidedly un-snowy southern California that he finally began to appreciate snow. “I found it kind of funny that after I ended up as an adult and moved away ...

The 2008 Abel Prize was awarded to John Griggs Thompson of the University of Florida and Jacques Tits of the Collège de France for their contributions to group theory, the mathematical field that ...

It took Wilson Bentley, a self-educated farmer in Vermont, years to figure out how to do it, but his patience paid off with the first photograph of a single snowflake in 1885. Bentley united a ...