Credit to whom credit it due.....

Before we go onwards with this blog, it is only right to pause and give credit to whom credit is due.......but first a small digression.

Noting my propensity for snowflakes, I came across a beautiful book in a supermarket of all places, full of amazing photographs of snowflakes. Of course I bought it at once! When it came time to do this blog I was happy to find that the very same photos from the book are available on the web as anything less would not do the subject justice.

So many thanks to Caltech physicist Kenneth Libbrecht and photographer Patricia Rasmussen for their excellent book The Snowflake, Winter's Secret Beauty. More on snow crystal research can be found at their website www.snowcrystals.com and also includes many more amazing photographs and insight.

The perfection, symmetry and delicateness of snowflakes never ceases to amaze me and I am happy to have found people with the same sense of awe and wonder.

In his book, Mr. Libbrecht writes, "All crystals demonstrate an amazing organizational ability- they assemble themselves. A crystal's order and symmetry arise spontaneously, starting with a random collection of molecules. This organizational feat should not be overlooked. If you want a brick wall somewhere, it certainly does not assemble itself. You have to build it, brick by brick. The order and symmetry are imposed by you, the builder. It's absurd to think that the bricks could magically put themselves together into a wall."

hmmm.......sounds familiar.

Since Mr. Libbrecht did not carry that line of thought any further may I take the liberty of doing it for him? I think he was just a little too shy to come out and say:

Thanks God, You did an AWESOME job on those snowflake designs!!!!!