In a message dated 2/15/2012 7:09:29 P.M. Pacific Standard Time,
noreply@blogger.com writes:
noreply@blogger.com writes:
“...there are never two identical snowflakes...”
Totally a peripheral issue, but I don't think that's true.
The environmental variables are enormous, but the size and characteristics of snowflakes are always within concrete limits. Assuming a snowflake has some limited number of water molecules, which are naturally inclined to make hexagonal connections, there is a very small probability (larger among smaller flakes) that two are identical. See:
http://www.its.caltech.edu/~atomic/snowcrystals/alike/alike.htm
For small water crystal formations, which still qualify as snowflakes, duplicates (at least apparently) have been found:
"But in 1988, the scientist Nancy Knight (at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado) was studying wispy high altitude cirrus clouds. Her research plane was collecting snowflakes on a chilled glass slide that was coated with a sticky oil. She found two identical (under a microscope, at least) snowflakes in a Wisconsin snowstorm."
http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2006/11/13/1784760.htm
No response required. Just a novel investigation that I thought you might find interesting.
Thanks so much Bill.
The topic regarding identities in nature is critical to understanding univironmental determinism and neomechanics. In philosophy, the answer to the snowflake question distinguishes one as being either a determinist or an indeterminist. Your leanings in this regard are consistent with your belief in finity, freewill, and the god particle, which we have already discussed. The major claim of univironmental determinism is that what happens to a portion of the universe is determined by the infinite matter within and without. The Ninth Assumption of Science, relativism (All things have characteristics that make them similar to all other things as well as characteristics that make them dissimilar to all other things) gets right to the point. Whenever we examine any two portions of the universe (such as snowflakes) we may find many similarities indeed, but if we look in more detail, we invariably find some dissimilarities. This is, of course, because the universe is microcosmically (and macrocosmically) infinite. That is why “identical twins” and electrons (see UCT) are never really identical. True identities are only imaginary, abstractions that necessarily leave out dissimilar characteristics. Sloppy science will yield the same result.
I like your use of the words “apparently” and “under the microscope, at least).” It looks like we are making progress. It is a long trip from mainstream science, which still assumes finity just like the classical mechanists and the classical determinists. Once we assume infinity, everything changes. The consupponible Second Assumption of Science, causality, states that all effects have an infinite number of material causes. This could only happen in an infinitely subdividable universe. Every analysis that we make always has a plus or minus. No two analyses of anything can ever be identical. Nothing has a finite number of characteristics that would be necessary for identities and for causality to be finite, as claimed by classical mechanics and its mathematicians.
A little anecdote goes along with this subject. I once had a tussle with a Wikipedia author on the uniqueness of snowflakes. The author said that the probability of any two snowflakes being identical was on the order of 1 in 10125. This finite number was obtained by considering 100 characteristics. I claimed, of course, that the probability was not only low, it was zero. We edited back and forth for a few times. Guess who won that one? The entry has subsequently been edited to be only slightly more compliant with infinity:
“Although statistically possible, it is very unlikely for any two snowflakes to appear exactly alike due to the many changes in temperature and humidity the crystal experiences during its fall to earth. …It is more likely that two snowflakes could become virtually identical if their environments were similar enough. Matching snow crystals were discovered in Wisconsin in 1988. The crystals were not flakes in the usual sense but rather hollow hexagonal prisms, with identical complex snowflakes considered impossible.”
Note the reliance on macrocosmic finity in the attempt to achieve “virtual” identity. In the last sentence, the author takes a swing at microcosmic finity in defending the Wisconsin mess and asserting that “rather” hollow prisms might be identical because of their lack of complexity. Of course, in our view, no portion of the universe “lacks complexity.” That is because every portion of the universe is microcosmically and macrocosmically infinite.