Phriday Physics Phun! What is the force Superman exerts to stop a plane from crashing into the ground, or the speed and mass of Vince Vaughn's winning Dodgeball shot? What's the force exerted by a Dominique Wilkins windmill slam dunk, or the speed of a retired Charles Barkley? What's the frequency of a cat's purr? ...the mass of a snowflake? ...the pressure inside a can of soda? ..the reaction time of the human fingertip? The Physics Factbook, via hypertextbook.com, is "an encyclopedia of scientific essays written by high school students that can be used by anybody," containing over 800 entries and special topics. [more inside]
posted by not_on_display on Jan 16, 2009 - 28 comments

Everything you want to know about snowflakes from the unusual to the artificial to the ones that are just really pretty.
posted by DeepFriedTwinkies on Aug 11, 2005 - 9 comments

Paper Snowflake Patterns We've all had hours of joyous fun making virtual snowflakes, but Dave here has made some that you can print and cut out and stick up on the wall.
posted by exceptinsects on Feb 9, 2005 - 2 comments

The Bentley Collection of Snowflake Photographs
posted by anastasiav on Mar 8, 2004 - 5 comments

Even the ugliest cuts make beautiful flakes.
posted by crunchland on Feb 27, 2003 - 35 comments

Wilson A. Bentley spent half a lifetime photographing snowflakes. The Smithsonian rejected his huge collection of photographs, on which his book was based. Now Buffalo, New York, a major snow capital, will feature Bentley's work in its "Winter Wonders" exhibit. More snowflakes can be seen on Cal Tech's snow crystals site (last cited in MeFi last January). Another city obsessed with snow is Asahikawa, Japan, home of the Austrian-inspired Snow Crystal Museum. The scientifically inclined may prefer this paper on the formation of ice-crystal patterns.
posted by SealWyf on Nov 26, 2002 - 11 comments