Snow: the geometric handwriting of melting nature

Source: Handwriting from heaven: Kepler and the geometry of the snowflake

"Since snow is nothing but frozen water, forced into a certain shape, the question arises: why is this shape always hexagonal? It is like a letter sent from heaven, the handwriting of nature herself, written in the language of geometry and telling us of the creative force that dwells in all things."

(1611, "On the Six-Cornered Snowflake" (De Nive Sexangula)).

Explanation: An intellectual gift: how a winter riddle gave birth to a new science

Kepler wrote the essay as a humorous and intellectual New Year's gift for his benefactor, Baron von Wackenfels, and that was how he came to investigate the solitary flake. In this essay, Kepler was the first to wonder why snowflakes always have six corners, thereby laying the foundations of modern crystallography (the study of crystals).

Perspective: Architecture versus mud: does uniqueness matter?

Snow is the crushing proof that nature is a bizarre architect, almost like Gaudí, the Catalan architect. The cliché that a snowflake is "unique" doesn't make it important—after all, a moment after it falls to the ground, it turns into a muddy, hazardous nuisance. The uniqueness of a snowflake is wondrous and moving, but momentary. Kepler's problem is the problem of every researcher: he sees the architecture of nature, instead of seeing snow.

Going Deeper: Fractals and tzimtzum: when the infinite is embodied and disappears

Fractal theory—geometric shapes that continue to reveal finer details the more you magnify them—also views the snowflake (the "Koch snowflake") as a classic example of mathematical beauty in which the boundary is infinite but the area is finite. In Kabbalah, this is the secret of tzimtzum (divine contraction): how the abstract infinite manages to become embodied within rigid physical boundaries. Divinity clothes itself in geometry so that we can, for a moment, hold it in our hand before it melts and disappears.

Culture: Mono no aware: the philosophy of fleeting beauty

Doris Dörrie's film Cherry Blossoms (Kirschblüten – Hanami) may deal with flowers, but the philosophy is the same: the appreciation of the ephemeral (mono no aware). The Japanese understand that what falls—whether it is snow or a blossom—is beautiful only because it is about to disappear. In Israel, every year we celebrate the "Darom Adom" (Scarlet South) festival, a four-week celebration of blooming red anemones—infinite beauty, bounded by a single month.