Capturing Snowflakes: Winter'S Frozen Artistry

As much a work of art as a testament to science, this revised, hardcover edition of the bestselling The Art of the Snowflake (now Capturing Snowflakes) includes a lasercut silver snowflake ornament in its cover and showcases 430+ images of snowflakes captured by the photomicroscope of the worlds leading expert on the subject, Kenneth Libbrecht, a professor of physics at Caltech who also served as a science consultant for Disneys Frozen movies.The snow may seem unvaried to the naked eye, but the microscope reveals an amazing menagerie of beautiful crystalline forms. Building on the pioneering work of Wilson Bentley (18651931), Libbrecht has developed techniques for capturing images of snow crystals in unprecedented detail. While wondering at the hundreds of exquisite snowflake portraits, find:The science behind snowflakes, including how they form on a molecular level and the complex process that guarantees each ones uniqueness Field notes from Libbrechts photographic expeditions to the frozen north The taxonomy of snowflakes and examples of each type: simple plates and prisms, columns and needles, capped columns, sectored plates, stellar plates, stellar dendrites, triangular crystals, double plates, split plates, split stars, and even rare twelvebranched snowflakes Quotations about the wonder of snowflakes and nature from Aristotle, Henry David Thoreau, John Muir, and moreThis book is a breathtaking look at the works of art that melt in an instant.