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SUMMARY:Snowflakes:  Letters from the sky and scientific messages from far
  beyond. - Professor John Wettlaufer\, Bateman Professor of Geophysics &am
 p\; Physics\, Yale University
DTSTART:20081113T113000Z
DTEND:20081113T123000Z
UID:TALK14273@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Dr C. P.  Caulfield
DESCRIPTION:The snowflake has a substantial influence on the entire fabric
  of life in northern latitudes. Moreover\, the scientific method itself wa
 s driven by the strikingly detailed observations of snowflakes made by Ren
 é Descartes.  Since his time amateurs and professionals alike have catalo
 gued the great varieties of shapes observed in the natural environment but
  the modern studies of Ukichiro Nakaya launched the systematic study of th
 ese objects. Nakaya was originally motivated to infer much of the temperat
 ure and humidity history of the snow crystal by observing its morphology o
 n the ground and hence he referred to them as "letters from the sky."  How
 ever\, his systematic laboratory studies revealed the basic physics of cry
 stal growth and thereby snowflakes and all other materials were forever en
 twined.  Indeed\, crystal growth experiments on the international space st
 ation use ice\, the growth of so called "negative crystals" in clathrates 
 within the great ice sheets hold clues about the Earth’s past climate an
 d influence the study of solar neutrino’s\, and the mechanisms by which 
 many organisms thwart the threat posed by low temperatures revolve around 
 many of the same processes.  Hence\, understanding the behavior of snowfla
 kes extends well beyond meteorological musings. These connections and the 
 basic processes that drive them are the topic of this talk. 
LOCATION:Open Plan Area\, BP Institute\, Madingley Rise CB3 0EZ
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