USC Dornsife Holiday Card 2013

True, snow is a rarity in Los Angeles. But this time of year, we imagine white speckles falling from the sky, clinging to the trees. At USC Dornsife, we see the complex and beautiful snowflake from every angle through the lenses of history, poetry, chemistry, linguistics, art, mathematics — and more.

May your holiday season be filled with wonder and joy.

Steve Kay Dean of USC Dornsife Anna H. Bing Dean’s Chair

Let It Snow

Use your smartphone or tablet to view a fascinating video about how our community of scholars sees snow.

1.

Download the USC Dornsife Augmented Reality (AR) app on your smartphone or tablet via your mobile app store.

The app is available for Android and iOS (iPhone/iPad).

2.

Open the USC Dornsife AR app and hold your device 8–12� from the Haystacks in the Snow panel inside this card.

Wait for the video to load.

No mobile device?

You can view the video at dornsife.usc.edu/snow

DECEMBER

If there were a blessing outside us

it would be the falling of snow

Evenness of movement quiet of decision

silence A clearness come,

a movement of lightness

Inside us it grows deeper; widens Hilda Morley, American, 1916–1998

N HAYSTACKS IN THE SNOW Oil on canvas, 1911

A German painter and printmaker, Franz Marc (1880–1916) was one of the key figures of the German Expressionist movement. He was a founding member in 1911 along with Wassily Kandinsky of Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider), a journal whose name later became synonymous with the circle of artists collaborating in it. Marc believed that true art should possess a spiritual dimension. In particular, he focused on the idea of the “mystical inner construction,” or the sense of spirit that gives a being or place its unique character.

Download the USC Dornsife AR app, hold your mobile device over this panel and watch video.

Psychologically, snow may affect people who have Seasonal Affective Disorder. Studies have shown that during snowstorms people tend to be affected by the darkness and can not produce enough serotonin to counteract the feelings of depression. Other studies discuss ions in the weather.

If there are positive ions in the atmosphere, people can become cranky.

O

In 1611, mathematician and astronomer Johannes Kepler published the short treatise On the Six-Cornered Snowflake, which was the first scientific reference to snow crystals. Kepler pondered the question of why snow crystals always exhibit a six-fold symmetry. Although he doesn’t refer to the atomistic viewpoint, Kepler does speculate that the hexagonal close-packing of spheres may have something to do with the morphology of snow crystals. Kepler recognized that the genesis of crystalline symmetry was an interesting scientific question, but realized that he did not have the means to answer it. Three hundread years later, Kepler’s question was finally answered with the development of X-ray crystallography.

hile traveling through the icy landscape of northern Canada’s Baffin Island during the 1880s, anthropologist Franz Boas wanted to study the life of the local Inuit people. He was particularly intrigued by their language and claims in the introduction to his 1911 book Handbook of American Indian Languages that Eskimos have hundreds of words for snow. However, most linguists consider this an urban legend, born of questionable scholarship and journalistic exaggeration.

Snow Crystal Growth

Nucleation around a dust particle

Grows to hexagonal prism, since smooth facets grow most slowly

Simple plate unstable as crystal grows larger ... corners sprout arms

Crystal moves to different temperature ... plates grow on arms Crystal moves through many different temperatures ... each change causes new growth behavior on arms

No-Two-Alike Conjecture

Complex history → Complex crystal shape Each arm experiences same history → Symmetry No two paths similar → No two alike

AQILOKOQ softly falling snow NATQUIK drifting snow MURUANEQ soft deep snow

PIEGNARTOQ the snow [that is] good for driving sled

University of Southern California dornsife.usc.edu