Friday, December 14, 2012

Hobbits and hexagons-

I AM ALL RECOVERED

Kinda. Glandular fever does linger in your body, and Im not for taking more blood samples (woman sucked me dry, jesus christ), so ill not be knowing exactly when ill be technically all good. No symptoms though, so practically, im fit as a fiddle. Though I do still feel that tardy fatigue that Im sure ive already written about, and thats not expected to vane before a couple months after ive recovered.


SO
Its been too long! The scientosaurus painting is already about a thousand years old, and I felt a longing for more digital art! So I drew a hobbit, of course, in honour of the movie about that hobbit, called... The Hobbit..! Uh.

I havent actually seen it, and its been years since I last watched LOTR... So I cant rightfully claim I depicted the hobbit from the movie. I just kinda drew a short man with no neck and short stubbly arms. Its almost more like a regular short person than an actual hobbit... Not that I actually know the difference.


Yuruhhh.. Fierce, so fierce. Ive grown a fancy for GIFs lately (If you havent noticed, the recently written about Mosaic actually moves.), so I wanted to make a kind of lazy walkthrough thingy. If anyone actually watched my youtube videos, might that I would have made a real video, but alas, youll have to make do with this.


Basic stuff. I kinda neglected the feet. I dont really like drawing feet. Just like with drawing hands, it takes a lot of practice. Quite frankly, its not really my favourite motive anyway.


A friend of mine told me to write about snow... Quite poignant, I guess. Were practically forced to wade through it. I figured the most fascinating thing about snow must be snowflakes.


Why are snowflakes so beautiful? And why are they symmetrical?

Well well well. Theyre beautiful BECAUSE theyre symmetrical. The human eye finds it appealing. So why is it that they form in this way? Why doesnt it always hail, as someone who never saw snow would naturally assume?

There some quite basic particle physics involved here... We know that snow consists of 3 different atoms, 2 Hydrogen atoms and one Oxygen atom, creating a water molecule. Hydrogen atoms in one molecule naturally form hydrogen bonds with oxygen from other molecules. This is why phenomenons like surface tension and viscosity can exist. 

Right, so, because of the way they connect to each other, the natural structure for a crystal will be a ring. More specifically, a hexagonal ring. A large quanity of hexagonal rings together create a hexagonal crystal, and as the molecular rings lie flatly upon each other, it creates a flat hexagon, with 8 facets.

At the edge between every facet, there is a natural affinity for attaching more water, as it forms into crystals in the atmosphere. For crystallization to even occur, it needs a base to happen on, like dust initally, or the snowflake itself.

As the hexagon has 6 edges, it sprouts 6 arms. The six arms will all grow in the same fashion, because they are all formed in virtually the same conditions, as these flakes are so small. Hexagonal structures are again formed, as the flake descends through the atmosphere and meets different layers with different conditions. These new hexagons form at the end of these arms, and the process begins anew, arms shooting out left and right, creating these beautiful formations of 6-way symmetrical ice.

Thats kind of a myth, though. Most snowflakes arent actually all that symmetrical, as conditions arent always perfect. And at the point they have reached the ground, and you, theyve already collided with other snowflakes, bunching up.

Why's snow white? Thats another natural question when it comes to snow in general. Its not white, actually. Its blue, really. Just not by much. Snow does absorb some red light, giving it a blue hue in certain conditions. Its the same with ice. And water, just not to the same extent. Anyhow, it appears white for the same reason a layer of  crushed glass may appear white; Light hitting snow it is mostly reflected. It may be reflected once, twice, thrice, or even four times, without losing much of its energy. Eventually, the light is bound to scatter back up, into someones eyes, making the snow look white. Theres also a refractive component, meaning light will pass through it. That might hit our eyes, making us see white, but reflection is more likely the main element at work here. 

So thats great to know if youre writing an essay on snow... I hope. 

GOOD DAY AND HAVE A NICE WEEKEND

2 comments:

  1. Im actually suppost to write an essey about snow, thanks!

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    Replies
    1. Im absolutely delighted if my text can even be of the slightest assistance to you :D

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