The Debunker: Ken Jennings vs. Holiday Myths, Part 4

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Isnâ??t this time of year sort of different? Sort of, well, special? A time when people are a little kinder, a little friendlier, a little more likely to nod and smile at all kinds of silly conventional wisdom about the holidays and their traditions? In the interest of decorating the season with a little bit of reason, weâ??ve asked miserly old Ken Jennings to give a rousing â??Bah, humbug!â?? to four coal nuggets of misinformation that seem to show up under the tree every single December. So gather with us under the myth-letoe and find out which four cherished bits of Christmas lore turn out to be completely fa-la-la-la-llacious. We think Yule be surprised.

Holiday Myth #4: No two snowflakes look alike.

What would the holiday season be without children folding squares of typing paper into eighths or sixteenths, and then cutting them into elaborate doilies vaguely resembling snow crystals, to be hung from drop ceiling tiles in a school classroom? Said children have probably been reassured since birth that they themselves are â??special little snowflakesâ??â??that is, as endlessly different and unique as the crystalline lattices that condense from the sky during a winter storm.



Well, the children may well be unique, but the snowflakes sure arenâ??t. The old adage about snowflake uniqueness dates back to Wilson Bentley, a turn-of-the-century Vermont man so fascinated by snowflakes that he spent his life perfecting a process to photograph these miraculous â??ice blossoms,â?? as he called them. In a series of journal articles, Bentley argued that no two snowflakes were alike, an idea convincingly illustrated by his 6,000-photograph collection of beautiful snowflake images.

At a molecular level, of course, Bentley was right. There are something like a sextillion molecules of water in a tiny snowflake, and the arrangement of hydrogen and oxygen isotopes within those water molecules will never be precisely duplicated. But at a more meaningful levelâ??that of microscopic inspectionâ??Bentley was wrong. The simplest possible snowflake shapes, seen in the smallest flakes that fall shortly after condensation, are repeated all the time. In 1988, a government researcher named Nancy Knight produced two snowflakes that had fallen during the same Wisconsin snowstorm. Their shapesâ??simple hexagonal prismsâ??were identical, no matter how closely she looked.

So we need a better metaphor for the specialness of our childrenâ??snowflakes have been out since 1988. I suggest â??UPC codes.â??

Quick Quiz: Frosty the Snowman may be made out of snowflakes, but what is his nose made out of?

Ken Jennings is the author of Brainiac, Ken Jennings's Trivia Almanac, and Maphead, out now. He's also the proud owner of an underwhelming Bag o' Crap. Follow him at ken-jennings.com or on Twitter as @KenJennings.

Photo by Flickr user yellowcloud. Used under a Creative Commons License.

 



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