Is there a match to a snow flake pattern?

Answer 1

There are no two snow flakes the same. This is the widely held belief, and it is probably as true as any such broad assumption can be. But when you stop to think about it, no one can ever possibly know with absolute certainty. You would have to go to the level of actually matching atom for atom every snowflake in every group of similar snowflakes, and you would have to be able to do this for every single snowflake that has ever fallen on earth. Apart from being interesting only from a statistical point of view, my thought is that there has very likely been any number of snowflake groups or pairs that when examined by eye or under an ordinary telescope would demonstrate that some snowflakes are indistinguishable from others. If pushed I would say that an atom for atom comparison would probably never result in an exact match, but it would be a matter of likelihood, not certainty.