(More of Alex Caldon's writing can be found in the book The Quest For Truth: On Finding The Grail, which is available from www.thequestfortruth.co.uk.  Some people are eligible for a free copy.  Happy Questing! )

How does a snowflake know how to be symmetrical? We all know what snowflakes look like, with six-sided symmetry, and we’ve often heard that each flake is unique, but do we know how they actually work?

A snowflake forms by the coalescing of molecules of water vapour out of the atmosphere up in the clouds. Billions and trillions of molecules of water come together to form each snowflake. To start a snowflake off, there first of all needs to be a nucleus – a piece of dust – which allows the condensation process to begin. The rate at which water molecules condense onto the nucleus is phenomenal – billions per microsecond, something like that. Now consider an approaching molecule; it has to find a spot to join on to the ice crystal, but how does it know it has to slot into position A where it will mirror the other five branches of the snowflake, and not mess it all up by slotting into position B? There must be some form of communication between the newly arriving molecule and the pattern which is already there. Something must be happening on the atomic level; there must be a kind of energy field which occupies the structure of the snowflake and guides in every new water molecule. It is miraculous. It is so simple and yet we haven’t figured out what’s really going on.

The result of all those coalescing molecules is to create a crystal which, when viewed through a magnifying glass, can be seen to be quite beautiful. Here lies another mystery. Where does this perception of beauty come from? What is it that generates awe and wonder in this way? When we look at a snowflake, its beauty is breathtaking; how is it that it can be so beautiful? It seems to clash with what we have evolved to be; surely there can’t be an evolutionary advantage to perceiving beauty in this way? Well maybe there is.

The Theory of Evolution stands the truth tests well, and the perception of natural beauty is also a universally accepted truth. Yet if we evolved through a process of natural selection, how can the perception of natural beauty give us a survival edge over our competitors? At first glance it seems illogical, and yet evolution and beauty are certainly real. If we let our minds wonder we can see that there is a survival plus for a species to care for the environment in which it lives. For example, if we ruin our planet by global warming caused by fossil fuel use, then we are ultimately certain to bring about our own demise. When we see natural beauty we are compelled to look after the world which nurtures us and so by logical extension we are ensuring our own survival.

It seems we really do have evolution to thank for our appreciation of natural beauty.

“The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed.” Albert Einstein