True, snow is a rarity in Los Angeles. But this time of year, we imagine white speckles falling from the sky, clinging to the trees. At USC Dornsife, we see the com-plex and beautiful snowflake from every angle through the lenses of history, poetry, chemistry, linguistics, art, mathematics — and more.

May your holiday season be filled with wonder and joy.

Steve KayDean of USC DornsifeAnna H. Bing Dean’s Chair

Let It SnowUse your smartphone or tablet to view a fascinating video about how our community of scholars sees snow.

1.Download the USC Dornsife Augmented Reality (AR) app on your smartphone or tablet via your mobile app store. The app is available for Android and iOS (iPhone/iPad).

2.Open the USC Dornsife AR app and hold your device 8–12” from the Haystacks in the Snow panel inside this card. Wait for the video to load.

No mobile device? You can view the video at dornsife.usc.edu/snow

DECEMBER If there were a blessingoutside us it would be the fallingof snow Evennessof movement quietof decision silence A clearnesscome, a movementof lightness Inside us it grows deeper;widens

Hilda Morley, American, 1916–1998

Download the USC Dornsife AR app, hold your mobile device over this panel and watch video.

HAYSTACKS IN THE SNOWOil on canvas, 1911

A German painter and printmaker, Franz Marc (1880–1916) was one of the key figures of the German Expressionist movement. He was a founding member in 1911 along with Wassily Kandinsky of Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider), a journal whose name later became synonymous with the circle of artists collaborating in it. Marc believed that true art should possess a spiritual dimension. In particular, he focused on the idea of the “mystical inner con-struction,” or the sense of spirit that gives a being or place its unique character.

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Psychologically, snow may affect people who have Seasonal Affective Disorder. Studies have shown that during snowstorms people tend to be affected by the darkness and can not produce enough serotonin to counter-act the feelings of depression. Other studies discuss ions in the weather. If there are positive ions in the at-mosphere, people can become cranky.

In 1611, mathematician and astronomer Johannes Kepler published the short treatise On the Six-Cornered Snowflake, which was the first scientific reference to snow crystals. Kepler pondered the question of why snow crystals always exhibit a six-fold symmetry. Although he doesn’t refer to the atomistic viewpoint, Kepler does speculate that the hexagonal close-packing of spheres may have something to do with the mor-phology of snow crystals. Kepler recognized that the genesis of crystalline symmetry was an interesting scientific ques-tion, but realized that he did not have the means to answer it. Three hundread years later, Kepler’s question was finally answered with the development of X-ray crystallography.

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hile traveling through the icy land-scape of northern Canada’s Baffin Island during the 1880s, anthropol-ogist Franz Boas wanted to study the life of the local Inuit people. He was particularly intrigued by their language and claims in the intro-duction to his 1911 book Handbook

of American Indian Languages that Eskimos have hundreds of words for snow. However, most linguists consider this an urban legend, born of questionable scholarship and journalistic exaggeration.

AQ

ILOKO

Q softly falling snow N

ATQU

IK drifting snow M

URU

AN

EQ soft deep snow

PIEGNARTOQ the snow [that is] good for driving sled

Nucleation around a dust particle

Grows to hexagonal prism, since smooth facets grow most slowly

Simple plate unstable as crystal grows larger ... corners sprout arms

Crystal moves to different temperature ... plates grow on arms

Crystal moves through many different temperatures ... each change causes new growth behavior on arms

Snow Crystal Growth

No-Two-Alike ConjectureComplex history → Complex crystal shape Each arm experiences same history → SymmetryNo two paths similar → No two alike

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