Snowflakes

[Carcrash]

Why are snowflakes two dimensional?

[New Judge]

They are not. What makes you think that they are?

[woofgang]

nothing in this universe is.....even an image on paper has thickness from the paper and the ink.

[Carcrash]

I intended to use the word flat instead. Yes, I know that they have a thickness and therefore are not two dimensional but why do snowflakes not grow in a three dimensional lattice type structure?

[Carcrash]

Snowflakes are flat crystals. I have never seen a crystal grown in a solvent that possesses the same high degree of flatness.

[TheChair]

Apparently they are not all flat:
http://www.snowcrystals.com/science/Snowflake%20Morphology2.jpg

[Old_Geezer]

The pictures/photos you see are ideal ones. Nature tends to be rather haphazard. That said I guess the question as to why it has a tendency to spread out in one plane is fair enough. Perhaps once it starts it's more difficult to grow perpendicular to what has already formed; easier to keep going the way it already is ?

[fiction-factory]

Koch snowflakes are fascinating- such a tiny area but an infinite perimeter

[Carcrash]

What atmospheric conditions prevail to produce, on one occasion, a flattish snowflake and, on another, spherical crystal s called hail. What compels the water molecule to adopt these two different configurations.

Carcrash

[woofgang]

oh homework.....

[Bazile]

Are any two snowflakes the same in shape ?