August 7, 2024 • 9 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, Dr. Jerry Bergman tells the story of a teenage boy who became interested in snow. On January 15, 1885, at 20 years of age, he became the first person in the world to photograph a snowflake.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
This is our American stories, and we tell all kinds
of stories here on this show. As you know, Jerry
Bergman has taught science for forty five years at university
in subjects like biology, genetics, chemistry, biochemistry, anthropology, geology, and microbiology.
He has nine degrees in the field of science, including
(00:33):
seven graduate and postgraduate degrees. Doctor Bergmann's here to tell
us the story of a teenage boy who became interested
in snow. In January fifteenth, eighteen eighty five, at twenty
years of age, he became the first person in the
world to photograph a snowflake. Here's doctor Bergman with the story.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
Well, his background is he's in Vermont and a lot
of snow there, and he became interested in science, and
his parents were very supportive. They even though they really
couldn't afford it. They bought him things like a microscope
and a camera so he could take pictures. And among
his many interests was the weather. He actually charted the
(01:15):
weather and tried to correlate the weather with other events.
But he became especially interested in snowflakes, and he could
with a small magnifying glass he could see they looked different,
and so he tried to figure out what, why are
they different, what's going on here? And of course the
problem is a microscope requires lights, and light produces heat,
(01:35):
and the heat melted the snowflakes. So he had to
come up with a way of getting it cold enough
to get the snowflakes and examine them work quickly so
he could get pictures without the snowflakes melting, and he
was finally able to do that. In fact, he was
the first person ever to get a photograph of a snowflake,
(01:56):
and so that was quite a invention for a young boy.
Was home schooled by the way, he didn't go to
public schools, and his parents his mother was a teacher,
so she was very supportive of his work, so he
was somewhat independent, I guess his whole life. His full
name was Wilson or Willie. They called him his childhood
name Bentley, and his name often is called snowflake Bentley
(02:22):
because he did so much work in this area and
he wanted to explore the world of science firsthand, and
he saw God not only in the scriptures, but he
saw God in the natural world. And as a result
of his studying the natural world, he just realized he
could learn a great deal about God through studying God's creation,
and once he noticed they were different, he wanted to
(02:45):
photograph them because he felt that the glory of God
can be revealed through snowflakes. And of course people thought
that was silly, because come on, the glory of God
can be revealed through snowflakes. This is silly. But he
saw snowflakes as miracles of beauty, and it seemed to
him the beauty of this should not be hidden, It
(03:07):
should be seen and appreciated by others. So how can
you do that. You can do that basically by getting pictures.
And when he photographed them, he realized that the key
is the conditions. Can't be too cold because then the
snowflakes are brittle. It can't be too warm because then
the snowflakes melt. And so therefore he really was a
(03:29):
good experimentalist. I mean, he must have spent hours and
hours and hours of failures and he realized that, well,
this has to be done, and he had things all
set up to get pictures, and something would happen. He
didn't get a picture. He wasn't fast enough, and so
he had to work out his system so that he
was able to accurately get snowflakes, and once he did so,
(03:52):
he was able to photograph a few ten fifteen, twenty,
and then after a while he ended up with about
five and snowflake images for the forty six years that
he worked on this, and so he had a lot
of pictures. One interesting thing is is that even though
he wasn't a scientist, never went to school, he was
home educated, he ended up publishing in some of the
(04:15):
leading science magazines in the world. He wrote the article
on snow for the Encycopedia Britannica, and that was quite
a privilege in his day and well today as well.
And then he eventually published a coffee sized table book
of six thousand photographs titled Snow Crystals, and the book
(04:35):
was published by the leading publishers McGraw hill, and so
this was quite a coupe for a young man who
was home schooled. He also published articles on snowflakes in
Popular Mechanics magazine, in the world's leading scientific magazine called Nature,
and of course in the more common widely circulated magazines
(04:55):
like the National Geographic. In nineteen twenty three, unfortunately, I
have of most of these magazines, so I was able
to look them up in the nation geographic and from
our standards today, they were good and beautiful, but not
to the quality that we can get today today. The
techniques are such where we end up with incredibly gorgeous
(05:17):
pictures of snowflakes. And I have four or five books
which illustrate this, and you can see the beauty is
there quite vividly, and you can appreciate more than in
his day. But on the other hand, on his day,
you know, seeing a picture of a snowflake just astounded people,
and that's why he became his work became so popular.
(05:37):
Another contribution he made which turned out to be very important,
was every snowflake, as far as he could tell, was different,
and he wondered why why are they different? And so
he studied the process of the manufacture, the production of snowflakes,
and realize they fall in certain conditions, They move upward
(05:57):
because of weather conditions, so they move up and down
in the clouds, and after a while they end up
being exposed in different amounts of heat and cold in
different conditions, and that produces the variety that we see
in snowflakes. But you discovered they all have either six
sides or three sides. And now we understand part of
(06:18):
the reason for the difference is because water molecules are
not all the same. We have a water molecule called deuterium,
which is called heavy water, which is a little bit
different than most common water molecules. And now this is
a rare molecule. It's not found very commonly. But each
(06:38):
snowflake is made out of several hundred trillion water molecules.
And so even if we only have a few of
these molecules that are deuterium, we therefore end up with
differences because of these few molecules. Because when you're talking
about one thousand million billion water molecules, even if you
have a million billion than these ruge molecules such as
(07:03):
deuterium produce differences. And so he really did a lot
of work in chemistry and physics, in science and understanding
specifically why there are so many snowflake differences. And so
therefore it helps us appreciate the variety in nature. And
one thing you learn about nature when you study nature
is there is an enormous amount of variety everywhere in animals.
(07:27):
In Beatles, one scientist said God has an inordinate fondness
of beatles because he made so many kinds, and I
guess there are six seven thousand different kinds of beatles,
and so therefore one thing we know when we look
at the natural world is enormous variety everywhere, even in snowflakes.
And his inspiration, again was to understand God's creation. You
(07:51):
learn about God by studying his creation, which is true
because you learn about an artist by studying his artwork.
You learn about a musician by studying his music compositions.
You learn about God by studying his creation. And of
course his creation would be the natural world. And so
I've course, my background is science, so I agree that
(08:11):
that's true in many scientists that I know, their motivation
is to understand and learn about God, and certainly we
can see that was true in Snowflake Bentley. That's why
I became fascinating with him, because he's different. He's not
the usual person who goes to colleagues and gets his
PhD in physics and goes on and studies nature. He's
(08:32):
totally home grown, and therefore he was original and wasn't
constrained by the belief back then that you'll never photograph
snowflakes because it just can't be done because the heat
of the microscope. You've got to get light in there
to see it, and that light is heat, and therefore
that's going to melt the snowflakes. He can't do it,
(08:52):
and he had a hard time at first. He failed,
I think for two or three years and he wasn't
able to get one single photograph, but eventually he got thousands.
As Edison once said, the key to invention is not creativity,
but simply perseverance, keep trying, keep working. The local elementary school,
(09:16):
I was asked to come in and do a presentation
on Snowflake Bentley because they studied him in this school,
and so he still his ideas and his example still
inspires young people today, and there are a lot of
children's books about him, and so therefore it's a good example,
(09:36):
a good example for all of us.
Speaker 1 (09:38):
Great work is always by Greg Hengler for picking up
this story and for producing the piece, and a special
thanks also to Jerry Bergman for sharing the story of
Wilson Willie Bentley a beauty here on our American Stories
This is our American stories, and we tell all kinds
of stories here on this show. As you know, Jerry
Bergman has taught science for forty five years at university
in subjects like biology, genetics, chemistry, biochemistry, anthropology, geology, and microbiology.
He has nine degrees in the field of science, including
(00:33):
seven graduate and postgraduate degrees. Doctor Bergmann's here to tell
us the story of a teenage boy who became interested
in snow. In January fifteenth, eighteen eighty five, at twenty
years of age, he became the first person in the
world to photograph a snowflake. Here's doctor Bergman with the story.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
Well, his background is he's in Vermont and a lot
of snow there, and he became interested in science, and
his parents were very supportive. They even though they really
couldn't afford it. They bought him things like a microscope
and a camera so he could take pictures. And among
his many interests was the weather. He actually charted the
(01:15):
weather and tried to correlate the weather with other events.
But he became especially interested in snowflakes, and he could
with a small magnifying glass he could see they looked different,
and so he tried to figure out what, why are
they different, what's going on here? And of course the
problem is a microscope requires lights, and light produces heat,
(01:35):
and the heat melted the snowflakes. So he had to
come up with a way of getting it cold enough
to get the snowflakes and examine them work quickly so
he could get pictures without the snowflakes melting, and he
was finally able to do that. In fact, he was
the first person ever to get a photograph of a snowflake,
(01:56):
and so that was quite a invention for a young boy.
Was home schooled by the way, he didn't go to
public schools, and his parents his mother was a teacher,
so she was very supportive of his work, so he
was somewhat independent, I guess his whole life. His full
name was Wilson or Willie. They called him his childhood
name Bentley, and his name often is called snowflake Bentley
(02:22):
because he did so much work in this area and
he wanted to explore the world of science firsthand, and
he saw God not only in the scriptures, but he
saw God in the natural world. And as a result
of his studying the natural world, he just realized he
could learn a great deal about God through studying God's creation,
and once he noticed they were different, he wanted to
(02:45):
photograph them because he felt that the glory of God
can be revealed through snowflakes. And of course people thought
that was silly, because come on, the glory of God
can be revealed through snowflakes. This is silly. But he
saw snowflakes as miracles of beauty, and it seemed to
him the beauty of this should not be hidden, It
(03:07):
should be seen and appreciated by others. So how can
you do that. You can do that basically by getting pictures.
And when he photographed them, he realized that the key
is the conditions. Can't be too cold because then the
snowflakes are brittle. It can't be too warm because then
the snowflakes melt. And so therefore he really was a
(03:29):
good experimentalist. I mean, he must have spent hours and
hours and hours of failures and he realized that, well,
this has to be done, and he had things all
set up to get pictures, and something would happen. He
didn't get a picture. He wasn't fast enough, and so
he had to work out his system so that he
was able to accurately get snowflakes, and once he did so,
(03:52):
he was able to photograph a few ten fifteen, twenty,
and then after a while he ended up with about
five and snowflake images for the forty six years that
he worked on this, and so he had a lot
of pictures. One interesting thing is is that even though
he wasn't a scientist, never went to school, he was
home educated, he ended up publishing in some of the
(04:15):
leading science magazines in the world. He wrote the article
on snow for the Encycopedia Britannica, and that was quite
a privilege in his day and well today as well.
And then he eventually published a coffee sized table book
of six thousand photographs titled Snow Crystals, and the book
(04:35):
was published by the leading publishers McGraw hill, and so
this was quite a coupe for a young man who
was home schooled. He also published articles on snowflakes in
Popular Mechanics magazine, in the world's leading scientific magazine called Nature,
and of course in the more common widely circulated magazines
(04:55):
like the National Geographic. In nineteen twenty three, unfortunately, I
have of most of these magazines, so I was able
to look them up in the nation geographic and from
our standards today, they were good and beautiful, but not
to the quality that we can get today today. The
techniques are such where we end up with incredibly gorgeous
(05:17):
pictures of snowflakes. And I have four or five books
which illustrate this, and you can see the beauty is
there quite vividly, and you can appreciate more than in
his day. But on the other hand, on his day,
you know, seeing a picture of a snowflake just astounded people,
and that's why he became his work became so popular.
(05:37):
Another contribution he made which turned out to be very important,
was every snowflake, as far as he could tell, was different,
and he wondered why why are they different? And so
he studied the process of the manufacture, the production of snowflakes,
and realize they fall in certain conditions, They move upward
(05:57):
because of weather conditions, so they move up and down
in the clouds, and after a while they end up
being exposed in different amounts of heat and cold in
different conditions, and that produces the variety that we see
in snowflakes. But you discovered they all have either six
sides or three sides. And now we understand part of
(06:18):
the reason for the difference is because water molecules are
not all the same. We have a water molecule called deuterium,
which is called heavy water, which is a little bit
different than most common water molecules. And now this is
a rare molecule. It's not found very commonly. But each
(06:38):
snowflake is made out of several hundred trillion water molecules.
And so even if we only have a few of
these molecules that are deuterium, we therefore end up with
differences because of these few molecules. Because when you're talking
about one thousand million billion water molecules, even if you
have a million billion than these ruge molecules such as
(07:03):
deuterium produce differences. And so he really did a lot
of work in chemistry and physics, in science and understanding
specifically why there are so many snowflake differences. And so
therefore it helps us appreciate the variety in nature. And
one thing you learn about nature when you study nature
is there is an enormous amount of variety everywhere in animals.
(07:27):
In Beatles, one scientist said God has an inordinate fondness
of beatles because he made so many kinds, and I
guess there are six seven thousand different kinds of beatles,
and so therefore one thing we know when we look
at the natural world is enormous variety everywhere, even in snowflakes.
And his inspiration, again was to understand God's creation. You
(07:51):
learn about God by studying his creation, which is true
because you learn about an artist by studying his artwork.
You learn about a musician by studying his music compositions.
You learn about God by studying his creation. And of
course his creation would be the natural world. And so
I've course, my background is science, so I agree that
(08:11):
that's true in many scientists that I know, their motivation
is to understand and learn about God, and certainly we
can see that was true in Snowflake Bentley. That's why
I became fascinating with him, because he's different. He's not
the usual person who goes to colleagues and gets his
PhD in physics and goes on and studies nature. He's
(08:32):
totally home grown, and therefore he was original and wasn't
constrained by the belief back then that you'll never photograph
snowflakes because it just can't be done because the heat
of the microscope. You've got to get light in there
to see it, and that light is heat, and therefore
that's going to melt the snowflakes. He can't do it,
(08:52):
and he had a hard time at first. He failed,
I think for two or three years and he wasn't
able to get one single photograph, but eventually he got thousands.
As Edison once said, the key to invention is not creativity,
but simply perseverance, keep trying, keep working. The local elementary school,
(09:16):
I was asked to come in and do a presentation
on Snowflake Bentley because they studied him in this school,
and so he still his ideas and his example still
inspires young people today, and there are a lot of
children's books about him, and so therefore it's a good example,
(09:36):
a good example for all of us.
Speaker 1 (09:38):
Great work is always by Greg Hengler for picking up
this story and for producing the piece, and a special
thanks also to Jerry Bergman for sharing the story of
Wilson Willie Bentley a beauty here on our American Stories
Host
Lee Habeeb
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