[Rhodes22-list] Coping with sailing season/boat show interruptus

[Saroj Gilbert]

Well, first reaction is "man, Jay has to be really down to the bottom of his 
TODO pile or simply can't face it anymore (that would be me).  Second 
reaction is that I could have an enjoyable half-hour exploring this 
phenomenon and the apparent discovery of two "matching" (whatever that 
means), but not quite identical, snow-not-quite-flakes, but, sorry, working 
hard to develop strategies to continue to make money in what looks like a 
scary market before us.  Third reaction was "is this a how many angels can 
dance on the head of a pin conversation?" altho admittedly snowflakes can be 
seen which shifts the conversation considerably.  I suppose it is more in 
the realm of "is it possible that two molecules of water can ever follow the 
precisely exact path in a waterfall?"  How would one ever know actually... 
so given the number of snowflakes that fall and the impossible task of 
observing more than the minutest sample of them, the problem has to be 
addressed on a theoretical / probability basis.  Thus it could be a very 
long convresation.  Hopefully had inside near a warm fire with lots to eat 
and drink.

Just on the subject of snow and gawd-awful weather conditions, I'll have to 
tune into the Eagles/Falcons game in Philly today to see if any fans are 
enthusiastic enough and sufficiently self-destructive to show up to sit in 
19 degree windy conditions to watch the game in person.

Have fun!

Freezing in S.E. VA,
Saroj

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Jay Friedland" <jsail1 at verizon.net>
To: "The Rhodes 22 mail list" <rhodes22-list at rhodes22.org>
Sent: Sunday, January 23, 2005 9:43 AM
Subject: [Rhodes22-list] Coping with sailing season/boat show interruptus


> http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a3_392.html
>
>  "Some months ago, Straight Dope fiends will recall, this column struck a 
> mighty blow for truth and freedom by attacking the belief that no two 
> snowflakes are alike, a superstition that has blighted the lives of 
> millions. Not having time to inspect all the world's snowflakes (besides, 
> I lost the tweezers), Cecil relied instead on the crushing logic of 
> mathematics, arguing that so many flakes had fallen since the dawn of time 
> that there were bound to be a few duplicates.
>
>  Naturally, many scoffed. One peanut-brain called to say he knew for sure 
> no two snowflakes were alike because he had heard it on Nova. There was 
> also the unfortunate business with the googols, which we won't go into 
> here. My defense in all cases was couched strictly in theoretical terms, 
> since I did not expect any actual cases of twin flakes to turn up 
> (although I must say the cast of characters in those Doublemint 
> commercials certainly came close).
>
>  I was therefore pleasantly surprised to read in the bulletin of the 
> American Meteorological Society that matching snow crystals were recently 
> discovered by Nancy Knight of the National Center for Atmospheric 
> Research. The crystals in question admittedly aren't flakes in the usual 
> sense but rather hollow hexagonal prisms. They are also not absolutely 
> identical, but come on, if you insist on getting down to the molecular 
> level, nothing's identical. They're close enough for me. Just shows you, 
> not only is this column at the cutting edge of science, sometimes we have 
> to wait for the cutting edge to catch up.
>
>  --CECIL ADAMS"
>
> Any comments from the list?
> Jay
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