Veritasium
1 HN recommender · recommended in 3 months, 2022–2023
18:49 · 11M views · Dec 1, 2021
Veritasium visits snowflake expert Dr Ken Libbrecht, who grows designer snowflakes in the lab. The video explains how snowflakes form and why they take so many shapes.
Recommended as a fantastic, scientist-led explanation of snowflake formation.
3 comments from Hacker News
Here's a fantastic Veritasium video about snowflakes with a scientist that basically figured out all of the ways they can form: this video
You suggest that I do not see the forest for the trees. I say that words have meanings, and that extraordinary claims need evidence. A material in which atoms (or molecules) are aligned is called a crystal. The process by which atoms align is called crystallisation. If we expand the concept of alignment we may consider atoms that are part of a polymer molecule to be "aligned". A material in which larger structures are aligned is a metamaterial. Beyond this level, referring to the alignment of atoms does not make sense. Sound can affect the process of crystallisation of a liquid because the formation of crystals is influenced by pressure. See this video But claiming that there is any crystallisation happening in a finished wooden stringed instrument requires evidence because it is implausible. If we refer to polymers, wood and glue and lacquer all contain polymers. But claiming that those polymers are in any way affected by sound also requires evidence. Also claiming that wooden instruments contain metamaterials and that the structure of those metamaterials can be altered by sound, similarly requires evidence. What I am saying is that you not only claimed the existence of an unlikely phenomenon, but you also confidently asserted that it can be explained by physics that contradicts current knowledge. I am claiming that this is the Dunning-Kruger effect in action. I have read the page you link and find it unconvincing. In my comment to Perenti ( [LINK] ) I have proposed an experime
In lab situations, it is possible to grow "identical twins". Some various coverage on Professor Libbrecht and his snow flakes... KEQD: [LINK] Quartz: [LINK] Veritasium: this video And if you want to dig deep: [LINK]