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Ultra High Resolution Photos of Snowflakes
- stewx 6y agoWhere are the actual high-resolution images? These are 720x540.
- stewx 6y agoAnswer: the photographer isn't providing the high-res photos. He sells prints of them through his web site: https://modernistcuisinegallery.com/artwork/yellowknife-flurry/ https://modernistcuisinegallery.com/artwork/yellowknife-flur...
- sixQuarks 6y agoI don't know what to think of this guy. On the one hand, he is the ideal tinkerer, going super deep into subjects like cooking and now photography of snowflakes. He has tons of money, yet he makes it difficult for ordinary people to access his work. The cooking books are thousands of dollars if I'm not mistaken. The snowflakes, you can't see in high res unless you pay for it. The thing that's confusing to me is that someone who is usually this passionate about something gets joy from sharing it with others freely. This guy seems super greedy.
- dontTango 6y agoOnce you have enough money, you can focus on passion projects. He clearly hasn't and will never be fulfilled.
- dwighttk 6y agoMore photos, fewer words and videos, please. (Former more important than latter)
- topicseed 6y agoFascinating! Do we know whether snowflakes from the same storm will be shaped very similarly? Or is there disparity within it, too?
- SV_BubbleTime 6y agoGoes along with what another poster asked about symmetry. Two snowflakes right next to each other in the same storm aren’t identical, and there’s no reason to say that they should be. Why would a single flake have symmetry to itself? Is it just getting down in such a small scale that the molecular bonds of the water can only make so many different angles?
- arethuza 6y agoI'm sure the Culture GCU Arbitrary, which collects snowflakes, approves of this post. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_State_of_the_Art https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_State_of_the_Art
- T3OU-736 6y agoI asked. It does :)
- jcims 6y agoThere's a lot of interesting structure in snowflakes that remains hidden in visible light photography. Look up SEM micrographs of 'snow crystals'. You'll find a few universities contributing to the art/science: https://sgil.ba.ars.usda.gov/snowsite/sequentialdata/sequentialdata.html https://sgil.ba.ars.usda.gov/snowsite/sequentialdata/sequent... If you're skilled in the art of cross-eyed 3D you can see some here: https://sgil.ba.ars.usda.gov/snowsite/stereo/stereo.html https://sgil.ba.ars.usda.gov/snowsite/stereo/stereo.html
- foobarbecue 6y agoCool, but these seem to all be Z-inverted when I magic eye them. I.e. the lows are high. Btw I have experience making stereograms. Pretty sure it's not "just me. "
- pimlottc 6y agoIt just depends on whether they were made for cross-eyed or wall-eyed viewing. They look correct to me using the cross-eyed technique. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autostereogram https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autostereogram
- mckirk 6y agoHuh, TIL. I find "wall-eyed viewing" much more comfortable and defaulted to that, then also wondered why the image didn't seem impressive at all... Never realized there was this difference, though it seems obvious in hindsight. Thanks!
- dstroot 6y agoNathan Myhrvold - what an amazing man of many talents. I am amazed at his talents and interests and how he can push the boundaries in so many fields.
- diego_moita 6y ago> how he can push the boundaries in so many fields. He is, pretty much, a parasite hiding behind a ton of hype and useless fluff, like snowflake pictures. First he made tons of money as a patent troll. To hide his dirty business he fascinated journalists with a machine he created to kill mosquitoes with lasers to fight malaria and yellow fever. No journalist bothered to realize that malaria infested places rarely have electricity to run that machine. Then he wrote a U$ 600 book (Modernist Cuisine) on how to make over-pretensious risottos and steaks using over-expensive equipment and chemistry. No serious cook follows any recipe in that book anymore. Now his next trick to show off is snowflake pictures. Yep, the man surely has both the know-how and the money to put up an irrelevant and pretentious show-off.
- melq 6y agoHe may be a scumbag patent troll, but Modernist Cuisine was a hugely important work in the food world. The techniques and recipes in it are most certainly used all the time in professional kitchens. It's a 600 dollar book for restaurants that are charging 250 pre fixes. Alot of the equiptment used in it are super common these days, immersion circulators, combi ovens, vacuum sealers etc.
- faeyanpiraat 6y agoI see lowres photos in an article an an interview. Where is the stuff promised by the title?
- mhb 6y agoFor that, you need money: https://modernistcuisinegallery.com/collection/ https://modernistcuisinegallery.com/collection/
- VMG 6y agohas he patented it already?
- SV_BubbleTime 6y agoPatent trolling side, he did build a specific snowflake camera. That doesn’t seem like an unreasonable thing to seek a patent for.
- sambroner 6y agoDid not realize this was Nathan Myhrvold at first! Although he's moderately controversial for Intellectual Ventures and famous for Microsoft and Modernist Cuisine, I know him best from the massive dinosaur skeleton in his Lake Washington mansion. While living in Seattle I had a (super, super dumpy) boat and a favorite activity was boating friends by his house to surprise them. A little tricky, but you could clearly see it! Always a treat, but I believe it was gone in the summer in 2019!
- Danieru 6y agoI feel a duty to point out the white washing. Nathan made his money on the basis of patent trolling, his firm being the world's largest patent troll. Journalists never mention the "where does this persom get the money to spend their time on complex cooking books and unique camera rigs". The answer being "he is a billionaire by taxing every one just a little bit". Like a new age king he spends his tax revenue on vanity projects. Sure none of us pay him much. At most a couple pennies every device. But if you ever wonder why the patent system is so broken: remember his face.
- uptown 6y agoFor more background: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nathan_Myhrvold#Intellectual_Ventures https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nathan_Myhrvold#Intellectual_V...
- cunac 6y agowhat is wrong for getting paid for non-trivial patent? You have choice of using or not. It is not upon you to make a choice it must be free.
- crispyambulance 6y agoYou should read up on how the practice of "patent trolling" actually works. You will quickly find it's profoundly toxic to innovation, creativity, and progress. It's antithetical to almost everyone's values save for extremely greedy people and their lawyers. Whether the patent is "trivial" or not doesn't even matter to these people. All that matters for them is that they can extract money.
- javajosh 6y agoPatent trolls make money by doing (very) lose pattern matching between what you do and the patent they hold, and then they demand an amount that they expect you to compare to the legal costs of arguing your point rather than the utility of the idea. It is a "gotcha" business model that is rightly reviled; the victims don't "choose" to use a patent, but rather the assertion of use is used as leverage by Myrvohld's company, and is expensive to defend regardless of merit. Therefore it is in their interest to assert every patent against every entity with any assets to take. It is very unfortunate that the justice system is so broken as to make this a viable business model. There are cases of stealing, but there are far more cases of businesses doing normal things and receiving claims out-of-the-blue that they have to spend tens of thousands of dollars to defend.
- matsemann 6y agoIncredible photos, makes me even more homesick. A few hours now, and I will be taking the train back home for Christmas. Can't wait to see the mountains and the snow! His surname sounds very Norwegian, btw.
- GrumpyNl 6y agoOn the photos i see some snowflakes with similar shapes, do we know how many base shapes there are for snowflakes?
- uptown 6y agoMore flakes: https://www.flickr.com/groups/1291263@N24/pool/ https://www.flickr.com/groups/1291263@N24/pool/
- DanielBMarkham 6y agoThank you. I clicked this title in order to see hi-res photographs of snowflakes. Instead I got a discussion of patent trolls and a bunch of other stuff that was not hi-res photographs of snowflakes. This was what I was looking for.
- foobarbecue 6y agoReminds me of one of my favorite images: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Snowflake_300um_LTSEM,_13368.jpg https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Snowflake_300um_LTSEM,_... It's so strange that there are people who use "snowflake" as an insult.
- bonthron 6y agoCheck out Wilson "snowflake" Bentley, he was photographing snowflakes at the turn of the century. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilson_Bentley https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilson_Bentley
- jack_pp 6y agoFirst picture is low resolution and .jpg which defeats the entire purpose
- traceroute66 6y agoOh, those snowflakes. I was expecting photos of a bunch of university students demanding history be re-written. ;-)
- Synaesthesia 6y agoHigh res photos can be found here. https://modgallery.wpengine.com/collection/ https://modgallery.wpengine.com/collection/
- KSS42 6y agoSlightly off topic, but this “Snowflake” jewelry from Pandora irks me. It’s a pentagram instead of a hexagram. I’m not sure if the designer was ignorant or they did this to reduce their cost. https://us.pandora.net/en/jewelry/necklaces/pendant-necklaces/sparkling-snowflake-jewelry-gift-set/B801424.html https://us.pandora.net/en/jewelry/necklaces/pendant-necklace...
- herodotus 6y agoThe perfect symmetries of snowflakes always struck me as being strange: how do the molecules at one edge of the flake know what their symmetrical partner at other edge is doing? It is interesting to see that the symmetries are not perfect, making it (somewhat) easier to accept.
- whatshisface 6y ago>how do the molecules at one edge of the flake know what their symmetrical partner at other edge is doing? Both sides are independently executing the same physical process to arrive at the same results.
- layoutIfNeeded 6y agoUmm... “snowflake” is mostly used as a slur nowadays against progressive liberals. I think the preferred term have been “aerial ice” for a while now.
- JoeAltmaier 6y agoPretty! I wonder what a snowflake looks like from the side. Do they have 3-dimensional structure too? Are they all flat?
- SV_BubbleTime 6y ago> Do they have 3-dimensional structure too? I can promise you they do! As to how much depth a snowflake has, IDK.
- guscost 6y agoSome family/friends published a few children’s books about snowflakes and snowflake photography: https://www.amazon.com/Michael-Photographs-Snowflake-American-Makers/dp/1530708044/ https://www.amazon.com/Michael-Photographs-Snowflake-America... https://www.amazon.com/Snowflake-Science-Activity-Michael-Peres/dp/0764360485/ https://www.amazon.com/Snowflake-Science-Activity-Michael-Pe...
- julienchastang 6y agoMeh, if you want to see really great pictures of snowflakes, checkout "The Snowflake: Winter's Secret Beauty." written by Kenneth Libbrecht and photography by Patricia Rasmussen. Libbrecht is chair of the physics department at Caltech and has had a life long passion for snowflakes from his early days in North Dakota. He now studies snowflake formation in his lab. I read it cover to cover and cannot recommend it enough. The book dives into the science of snowflake formation. You can find the book for $4 at Abebooks.
- spearo77 6y agoEasy search link (https://www.abebooks.com/servlet/SearchResults?cm_sp=SearchF-_-topnav-_-Results&ds=20&kn=The%20Snowflake%3A%20Winter%27s%20Secret%20Beauty&sts=t https://www.abebooks.com/servlet/SearchResults?cm_sp=SearchF...)
- SamLL 6y agoKen Libbrecht was my undergraduate advisor and I worked in his lab for a couple summers (in fact, growing snowflakes in a tank and measuring their growth rate at different temperatures and humidities - although mine had to be boring perfect hexagons to get accurate measurements). He's a great guy and a very talented communicator. I would absolutely recommend his book, and his website, http://snowcrystals.com/ http://snowcrystals.com/ , for anyone wanting to see great photos and learn about the science behind them.
- julienchastang 6y agoThat's very cool you worked with Ken on snowflakes.
- vernie 6y agoNot content with ruining patents and cooking, Nathan Myhrvold takes on snowflakes.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- ttul 6y ago“photographer Nathan Myhrvold” — wait, he’s also a photographer? Myhrvold is also: - the former CTO of Microsoft - a Michelin Star chef - patent troll / business genius - a working scientist who has published original, peer-reviewed research in the fields of paleobiology, climate science, and astronomy. He has to be one of the most remarkable people to have ever lived.
- melq 6y agoHe definitely isn't a Michelin star chef, technically he isn't even a chef. A chef runs a professional kitchen at a profit, he runs a research lab. I'm sure he's an excellent cook but I don't think he's even worked in a restaurant with a michelin star, let alone been the head chef at one.
- ttul 6y agoI stand corrected! He is not a Michelin star chef; however, he does have a culinary diploma from a respected French cooking school and has racked up some significant accomplishments in the world of cooking and baking, not least being his epic series of books called "Modernist Cuisine". From Wikipedia: "While working as chief technology officer at Microsoft, Myhrvold took leave to earn his culinary diploma from École de Cuisine La Varenne in France. Myhrvold's early culinary training was as an observer and unpaid apprentice at Rover's, one of Seattle's leading restaurants, with Chef Thierry Rautureau. Myhrvold is the principal author of a culinary text entitled Modernist Cuisine: The Art and Science of Cooking, released in March 2011, on the application of scientific research principles and new techniques and technology to cooking. That book, which earned a James Beard Foundation Award for "cookbook of the year" in 2012, was followed by the books Modernist Cuisine at Home, The Photography of Modernist Cuisine, and Modernist Bread: The Art and Science, all self-published by Myhrvold and with him as lead author. Myhrvold was part of a team that won first place at the world barbecue championships in Memphis. He has appeared as a guest judge on Top Chef."
- oostevo 6y agoIf this caused anyone to be interested in what happens to snowflakes after they fall on the ground, The Snow Grain Photo Library[1] has a library of photos of snow in various states of decomposition and metamorphosis. [1] http://www.snowcrystals.it/index.php http://www.snowcrystals.it/index.php
- the_arun 6y agoThis site smosa.com has ton of science related stuff - pretty useful for highschool students looking to grow in science.
- NiceWayToDoIT 6y agoWhat amazes me about Nathan Myhrvold is that he has 850 patents to his name. How is that even possible? He is 61 years old, and lets say he was working for 40 years. That a more than 21 patent a year, how much he needs to pay for keeping the patent rights each month? I guess after 25 years patent expire but still ...
- finnh 6y agopatent rights aren't a monthly fee. Also he made hundreds of millions from MSFT.
- simonebrunozzi 6y agoI don't know Nathan Myhrvold, and I could be wrong, but my impression is that he's a smart guy, trying to be remembered as the modern Leonardo Da Vinci (cuisine, mosquito laser zappers, etc - the widest intellectual curiosity one can imagine), without a decent chance of succeeding. These endeavors are so bizarre, so "off", so weird and different from each other, that they seem planned and fake to me. Leonardo had genuine curiosity, and no need to show off (except when looking for a job [0]). I feel that Nathan could learn from that. [0]: https://www.theladders.com/career-advice/leonardo-da-vincis-resume https://www.theladders.com/career-advice/leonardo-da-vincis-...
- avrionov 6y agoNathan Myhrvold is also the anonymous writer behind "My First Gulfstream" [1] & [2] [1] https://www.vanityfair.com/news/1998/10/gulfstream-199810 https://www.vanityfair.com/news/1998/10/gulfstream-199810 [2] https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB90728999776621000 https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB90728999776621000
- MitPitt 6y agoOn the Hacker News's top stories telegram channel this post has a snowflake emoji near it's name due to getting 100 points in 2 days. Kinda cute.