Science Stories

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Factual: Science & Nature

Surprising stories from the history of science told by Naomi Alderman and Philip Ball.

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Science Stories: Kepler's Snowflakes

How Perkin brought purple to the people

Kepler's Snowflakes

BBC Radio 4 - Science Stories, Kepler's Snowflakes

Philip Ball's tale is of Kepler's Snowflakes, a New Year's gift and of crystallography.

Philip Ball's tale is of Kepler's Snowflakes, a New Year's gift and his legacy of crystallography.

Philip Ball reveals the tale of a small booklet 'On The Six-Cornered Snowflake", written by Johannes Kepler as a New Year's gift. The C17th astronomer wished to explain the intricate and symmetrical shape of winter's tiny stars of snow. His insightful speculations about minerals and geometry was the beginning of the modern understanding of crystals.

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