This last Holiday season my family spent in Spokane with my in-laws. Each year Oma and Opa’s house fills up with aunts, uncles, parents, children, grandparents, sisters, spouses, grandchildren, and plenty of good eats. This year was no different; gourmet meals, delicious wines, song, skiing, sledding, Christmas cheer, and gifts. Amidst all the seasons events I attempted to do something new and christmassy and geeky.
I tried to catch a snowflake.
Catching snowflakes is certainly Chrissmassy but hardly new and geeky. All my life I have tipped my head back while the snow is falling and caught the deliciously chilly and utterly tasteless winter precipitants. Most of the catching was done with my face as if each flake could detect its imminent consumption as it twirled toward a tooth filled chasm, and, with a deft shift of its little crystal lattice, would escape its date with my epiglottis only to banzai into my cheek. Lemming-like, so would nearly all of its kin, with just the occasional flake being successfully devoured. This year, though, I wanted to catch one and immortalize it.
My implements of transcendence were super-glue and microscope slides. It is surprisingly difficult to get microscope slides in Spokane during the holiday break, and after dozens of calls and several false leads I found perhaps the last remaining box of slide for sale in Spokane. The super-glue, though, was in steady supply. I picked up several tubes planning to make several abortive attempts before success. Once obtained, both the glue and the glass slides must be placed in the freezer overnight. This is to make sure the snowflakes don’t melt while the glue is drying.
Now for the snow.
The first time snow fell I learned about several problems with immortalizing snowflakes. First was that all snowflakes are not the same. I know, I know, ever since childhood I have always heard that no two snowflakes are the same, but this was at a whole new level. As it turns out, most flakes are not shaped like the pretty crystalline images adorning the glossy pages of National Geographic. Most are large disorganized conglomerations of very small ice crystals looking much akin to artificial pillow fluff violently ripped from an offending cushion by an enraged and confused pit bull. Who wants one of those (-sigh- yes I was talking about the lumpy snowflake, but do agree the destructive dog is also undesired). I want one of the perfect ones and nature was not helping me. I would have to be patient, but in the mean time, I would experiment with the icy pillow fluff.
Secondly, snowflakes do not want to land on a small glass 1″x3″ slide. It seems that snowflakes, being humble entities, do not readily volunteer to become immortalized, but rather do their best to dodge the silicon slab hoping to careen gratefully into their massing peers upon the ground much like lemmings from a high upon a sea cliff. Ungrateful flakes. My wife commented that the ungrateful snow type of flakes were not the only ones outside tonight.
Alas, after providing a large target for humorous jokes from the warm and cozy audience on the other side of the large picture windows, I managed to develop a technique of capturing a flake. I am sure there are more efficient ways of flake capture, and I recommend you investigate to find what works best for you, and never, really, never actually tell anyone about your technique.
The third lesson brought out my ski gloves. The evening was not so cold as to be outside without gloves even for a Tucsonan in Spokane. No, it was because the thermal conductivity between flesh and glass is sufficiently high that by the time I managed to coax a snowflake onto the slide, it absorbed enough heat to instantly disguise itself as a raindrop. The ski gloves went on, my snowflake capture technique was performed, and I successfully caught a large clumpy snow glob that, to my amazement and relief, did not melt upon contact.
I learned many practical lessons of heat transfer that evening and generated a list of other heat sources that must also be avoided. For one, the porch light allowed me to see the snow falling, but warmed the glass slides I had arranged for easy access. Another was my breath which provided enough energy to surpass the latent heat of fusion for a whole family of snowflakes. I felt like Godzilla in Tokyo realizing that his radioactive breath was melting the cute little soldiers. After that I was taking short breaths and puffing out of the side of my mouth hoping to avoid slaughtering another platoon.
Another lesson is to make sure your glue stays cold. After I had successfully caught several feathery lumps of snow I came one step closer to immortalizing my flakes. I removed the superglue from the freezer, removed the lid, pierced the plastic dispensing spout, returned the lid to the top of the tube and dispensed a few drops. The first slide was fine. The drop of superglue settled over the snowflake without melting it. Astonishing. I paused for a moment marveling at this success, holding up the plastic superglue tube like a stunned desert scorpion. I am too used to thinking that all clear liquids have the properties of water, and at some level expected the flake to melt. It did not. This was the point that I thought this might actually work. I shrugged to myself and turned my attention to the second slide of snowflakes.
The second slide half worked. As I brought my stinger of superglue down and dispensed a drop onto the delicate crystals, I watched in dismay as the flakes turned to slushy disappointment. The third slide upped the ante again generating just a water and glue brew with nary a slushy hint. I was killing the little snow flake volunteers. I deceived each flake with the promise immortality and ended up with superglue soup. I looked at the tube of glue pinched between my fingers and realized that my hand had warmed the glue to above freezing. I would have to be quicker at dispensing the glue on my next set. Hopefully my reputation in the snowflake universe would not be too tarnished.
Another thing to remember is that the glass slides have to get to the freezer. I was lucky since my father in law keeps a freezer in the garage (good thinking Opa), but those who do not have that luxury might want to think about how this might be done. The glass slides will probably warm to thawing temperature within seconds of entering a warm room.
Now, with my long list of lessons learned, and the subtle coarse kinks sanded from my laminar process, I was ready for some beautiful snow. For the next few days and nights the snow fell niggardly from the sky. Each time I stepped outside to the assess the flakeage, I was dismayed to find, once again, the large snowy disheartening globs instead of beautiful delicate crystals. Each night I would retreat back into a fire warmed living room and drown my disappointment in a glass of Bailey’s Irish Cream poured gently over three ice cubes.
My wife offered some advice while I was retiring a spent Bailey’s bottle. She mentioned that “I should just get a few flakes anyway and see what they look like when immortalized. Even if they were globby and lumpy you would still have the only super glued immortalized snowflakes in Tucson, maybe in all of Arizona.” I could feel my Geek Mojo climbing up my computer chair curved spinal column making its way to that unmentionable primitive part of my hippocampus that even William Gibson wouldn’t dare to hack. It was like borrowing a $70K infra-red camera and taking zombie movies. It was like realizing that your $40K IRAD proposal has just blossomed into a $60M program. It was like Major T. J. “King” Kong (Slim Pickins) riding the H-bomb earthward in Dr. Strangelove. I would do it!
Boots on? Check.
Slides arrayed? Check.
Superglue? Check.
Gloves? Check.
Slide holding freezer unit (Tupperware bin)? Check.
Snow? Uhhhh … Check.
Indiana Jones music? Cool, but not necessary.
Outside amongst the earthward twirling minions, I extracted the first slide, stabbed it up in offering to the snow flake gods, and waited for a flake to land. It only took a few seconds before several candidates landed on my slide. I retracted my arm for a closer look. I held my breath (literally) and looked. Yep! Several clumpy flakes in a matrix on glass. But to my astonishment there, almost lost in the tufts of icy fluff, was a perfect snowflake as well. It was not half way down along the sinister diagonal of the glass slide looking up at me like an unpaired complex eigenvalue. I was not supposed to be there. Yet, there it was. I was astonished.
Six whole seconds ticked off before my breath puffed out from the corner of my mouth. Cold refilled my lungs with a frigid bite while a warm grin stretched across my face. The perfect flakes were here too. They must be. What would be the odds of catching the only perfect flake in a snow storm?
I looked again at the falling snow trying to see what I had missed. The snow appeared to be as lumpy and feathery as before. But, as I took a second look at the falling snow, I relearned that silly adage that all snow flakes really were not all the same. They werent even close. The flakes came in different sizes, some were large like the size of coins and others small ones and could fit easily on the eraser of a number two pencil. The large flakes fell quickly and the smaller ones took there time floating down from the heavens, and it was the latter ones that were the same size as my crystal prize that lay as sacrifice on my glass slide.
Again with slide in hand I watched the flakes come down, but this time with a discriminating eye for the slow and lazy. When I saw a candidate of just the right size and one with the manner of a five-year-old avoiding chores, I stabbed out with my slide like a fencing champion going for the win. It seems the little floating flakes are just as shy as their larger brethren and it took several stabs into the night sky before success welcomed me. After many more attempts and with some refining of my technique I got the hang of it and captured a few specimens.
Several drops of glue, the layering of top slides, one trip to the freezer, and three weeks later I was able to see the fruits of my labor. The snowflakes were there. There were many of the big clumpy flakes, and more of their melted brethren, but amidst all rabble were two successes. Two small snowflakes had weathered the cryogenic process and lay pressed between two glass slides and framed in lacy solid dry glue.
Next year I’m going to take the big tube of superglue.
