Science around: Behind the appearance of things

China Well -off Network Exclusive Specialty

Wen | Yin Chuanhong

Our scientific popularization and scientific education, if we can span the level of simple communication knowledge, give the audience methods and ideological influence, its communication effect will undoubtedly be better, and the significance should be more profound.

In the Chinese test questions of Volume B this year, the reading of practical texts gave three materials. They were selected from Yang Zhenning's "Symmetry and Physics", Yin Chuanhong's "Scientific Experiment caused by snow" and Kennedse Libre Hit's "Form of Ice: Physics in Snow Crystal". These three articles are related to the same theme: the hexagonal structure of snowflakes. The three questions required to answer candidates also extended from shallow to deep, and even asked what the thinking about snowflakes made to scientific research? What inspiration to us?

Many people have noticed that in recent years, in the Chinese test papers of college entrance examinations across the country, the frequency of scientific and technological innovation and science fiction related issues has become higher and higher. The popular science work I wrote by myself is just a proof. Regarding this college entrance examination question, I think that the original intention of the question on the question is not to simply examine the candidates' understanding of the relevant knowledge of snowflakes. The focus of the focus should be how to find problems from observation and thinking, and use scientific thinking to explore the essence behind the phenomenon, and change "unknown" to "known".

Such an exploration process is often a manifestation of the scientific spirit. It was said that our scientific popularization and scientific education, if it can cross the level of simple communication, give the audience methods and ideological influence, its communication effect will undoubtedly be better, and the significance should be more profound.

Back to the scientific theme of snowflake shape. Mr. Yang Zhenning's article mentioned that as early as the Emperor of the Western and Han Emperor in the Western and Han Emperor in more than 100 BC, a poet named Han Ying pointed out in "Han Poetry Wai": "Five more flowers and trees come out, and the snowflakes are only six. . "This knowledge is more than a thousand years earlier than the West. However, in the ancient literature of (China), no one went to explore why snowflakes were six petals.

One day in the early 17th century, Johnes Capeller, the founder of the German astronomer and the founder of the State Sports Law, noticed a snowflake that fell on his clothes when he passed through a bridge, and began to think: Why does Snowflake show six six The geometric shape of the horn? He believes that this cannot be coincidental, and "the reason cannot be found through the material, because the water vapor is invisible and flowing, and the reason can only exist in some mechanisms."

Limited to the knowledge at that time, Cairfler failed to explain accurate and scientific interpretations of the Snowflake Hexagonal structure, but his "direction is interesting" (Yang Zhenning). He wants to figure out what the cause of the hexagonal formation? He also noticed another spectacular hexagonal structure in nature -the bee's bee house: "The structure is like this, not only each bee house is 6 in the same row of 6 in the same row Share 6 -sided walls in the bee house, and the 3 planes at the bottom are also shared with the bee house on the opposite side. "He also compared this geometric structure with the seeds of pomegranates to form it attributed to the small small in the circular container. The physical process of squeezing the ball symmetrically.

Behind the appearance of things, the principle of nature is often hidden. In the three centuries after asking the problem, many researchers with great interest to study classic examples in natural structure geometry: beyond snowflakes, bee houses, as well as spider webs and marine life. The arrangement of each part of the shell and plants, even the shape of the cloud, the outline of the mountain, the fine waves on the shore, the curve of the rushing out of the Suma Sand Bay, and successively expand the scope of research to find "geometric characteristics of nature", Discuss the math wonders of nature. The leadership of these cross -disciplinary thinking has taken humans to a big step towards the complex composition of understanding the natural world.

The secret of the hexagonal snowflakes was gradually unveiled with the development of modern science. Now we have already understood that snowflakes are a geometric composition of ice crystals. The shape of the ice crystal composed of water molecules is determined by the surface tension. The ice crystal protrusions extend in six directions, making the vast majority (not all) snowflakes showing hexagonal shapes. More fine studies have shown that the standard hexagonal snowflakes are formed only below minus 15 degrees Celsius; only one -thousandth snowflakes have perfect hexagonal symmetry.

("Well -off" · China Well -off Exclusive Draft)

This article was published in "Well -off" in early August 2022

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