Snowflakes

Sadly, it has reached this point: where most of the new inputs in my brain come from books I am reading my children. One such book was called Snowflake Bentley. It is a children's book based on a true story about a Vermont man named Wilson Bentley who became obsessed with snowflakes. It was in the early 20th century and he so loved snowflakes and their shapes that on his sixteenth birthday he convinced his family to buy him either a microscope or camera, so he could look at htem more closely. Then he got a camera, and began to photograph them.

He spent his lifetime refining how to shoot them, where to shoot them, how to get them before they melted. He amassed a collection of thousands of snowflake photos over his lifetime. That wasn't his real job, just his passion.

Neighbors thought he was crazy. But he didn't care. He just kept shooting.

By the end of his life university libraries were collecting his photos and using them to study crystals and snow. That is the story, more or less. Somewhere in Vermont there is a town square with a simple monument to him.

The other night I was looking for snowflake designs for my annual Christmas card and I stumbled on some of his photos. Stunning! I printed them out. The detail, the miraculous patterns of these flakes. I love patterns. I love Islamic art and Oriental rugs and shapes and colors. I was trying to draw these snowflakes and they were wondrous.

I told Jonathan about Wilson Bentley and he had never heard of him either.

I am telling this story because he discovered something beautiful and devoted his life to it. No one cared much, but he advanced science, and helped us to understand the beauty of this world. I am inspired.