Although saidOur science is very advanced nowWe know many, many thingsBut something around usIs it really fully understood by us?The following *** in.
Lecture on the pulpit.
Zhang ChaoNational Astronomical Observatories of China, National Astronomical Magazine, popular science writerGezhi Campus Phase 24 |April 15, 2020 BeijingIf you want to talk about people, it's really a dream, maybe when it will come true. Actually, I had such a dream when I was a child. I watched a lot of cartoons at the time, and I remember that some of them had a lot of wonderful patterns at the beginning, such as Comet Iketani-Seki, such as the asteroid belt, and some pictures taken with a microscope, which was amazing. That's when I thought about one thing:When can I have a telescope or a microscope, it will be great. Later, when I went to work at the National Astronomical Observatories, I didn't have to worry about telescopes, but the microscope was really difficult. In fact, we will use microscopes in middle school, and we use microscopes to see onion cells and oral cells firstWhen you get to high school, you have to look at the silk** and the subusive**. I was anxious, when will the teacher lend me a microscope, I can see this magical microscopic world, what a cool thing, but unfortunately I don't have this opportunity. But then I found out that if I bought my own microscope and kept it at home, wouldn't all these things be solved?When I went to college, I really did this and bought a microscope. That's when I saw such a beautiful picture for the first time. 
It's algae, all kinds of algae, and it's swimming in the water, changing its posture, it's very magical. This microcosm is interesting. Then I began to continue my journey of discovery. The microcosm around usCompleted: 10%.What do we explore?Start with the side,There will be some strange things around us, although we are usually familiar with it, but we don't know it in the microcosm. 
Let's say this thing, it's not a pyramid, it's salt, a microscopic crystallization of salt. 
This is not an oil painting, it is the crystallization of soy sauce. 
Another example is this, it is not a peacock's feather. What is it?It is the crystallization of monosodium glutamate. 
It's not a fly, this thing is much smaller than a fly, it's called a fruit fly. Drosophila is a very important organism in biology and has made great contributions to genetics. The small fruit fly is only about one or two millimeters, its eyes are red, and the slight ** is two large compound eyes. Note that it's compound eyes, and each eye is made up of many small units, which is very fun. 
Mosquitoes look like this, I didn't expect it,Mosquito eyes are particularly beautiful and colorful. After reading this picture, I understood one thing. What's the matter, have you noticed that the mosquitoes have become more and more refined and difficult to fight in recent years. I remember when I was a kid catching mosquitoes with my bare hands and swatting mosquitoes at all. Now the mosquitoes see me, good fellow, and use two skills:The first stealth, I don't know where to fly, it's gone;The second skill is to fly with your heels, this is our long-term electric mosquito swatter, taming them. You look at the compound eyes of this mosquito, which is wrapped all over its head, so it has no dead ends when it sees people. You try to catch a mosquito leg, but you can't catch it. So microscopically, its biological properties are very obvious and clear. 
Another example is what it isAnt. Two compound eyes on both sides, the top is like Erlang God, and three single eyes. 
For example, this is a spider, and its name should be crab spiderSpiders like crabs. This spider is more fun,We look at the different expressions of each spider, For example, the picture above is very cute, and there is the following one, you say that it is also a spider, why is there such a big difference in expression?
In fact, if you analyze their appearance and some of their Xi, you will find that this thing is indeed somewhat interesting. For example, what is the Xi of this cute spider just now?It isLikes ambush hunting. For example, when you stay on a flower, the color of your body changes, and it is almost the same as that flower. And then wait, wait for the prey to come. The following one is not, this kind of spider is called a jumping spider, it does not form a web,Will jump to hunt. That is, it is a spider that hunts actively. Its eyes are a little different, the front two are like big light bulbs. Why did you look like this?You can interact with me and do a little experiment. First of all, everyone holds out a finger and puts it in front of their eyes;Then we close one eye and poke the finger of the other hand at the finger that is sticking out. Poke a few more times, and you will find that sometimes, you can't seem to judge the position of your finger and will poke crookedly. What's going on?
You see, it's useful for us to have two eyesWe have two eyes to judge the distance of an object and make accurate positioning. So what will we see in the African savannah?An antelope is running wild in front and a leopard is chasing after you, you never see an antelope looking back at a leopard chasing, right?Because the antelope's eyes grow on both sides, its eye field of view is very large. But the leopard is not, and in order to pinpoint its prey, it needs to look ahead so that it can hunt. In the microscopic picture, the difference between the two of them is clearly distinguished.
There are many people in the world who like to collect sand from various places. This is sand from an Indonesian beach, and there are a lot of small animal carcasses in it. For example, the three forks are sponges, the ones that look like carrots are corals, and the ones that look like zongzi are foraminifera.
This is called Star Sand, and it is also a sandy beach made of foraminifera.
This is the sand from the interior, and they come from the Gobi Desert, and inside are some small agate balls.
Another example is the sand next to the crater lake, which is in itVery crystalline and beautiful peridot crystal grains.
There are also volcanoes** with more beautiful grains of sand, like gems, which is fantastic. An indissoluble bond with snowflakesCompleted: 40%.Therefore, having a microscope by your side will never be boring, and it will never be like this. You'll explore a lot of unknowns. What do I like to explore the most?It is a snowflake that falls from the sky. But it's much more difficult to shoot snowflakes than the first ones, it's really much harder. Why?Let's think about it, what happens when the snowflakes fall?melted. How am I going to shoot this?At that time, I did observations at the Xinglong Observatory of the National Astronomical Observatories for a period of time. One night looking at the beautiful sky, a huge circle appeared on the edge of the moon. I saw that it was broken, what is this called?"The moon is halo and the rain is three, and the sun is halo and the wind is at noon". This large circle is an atmospheric light that tells us that the sky is about to change. So I paid special attention that night, and sure enough, it snowed in the middle of the night. Quickly turn off the binoculars and the dome to protect the equipment. Gotta do what you are doing this night?There's nothing more to do. At that time, I thought that I would try the next experiment and see if I could take pictures of the snowflakes.
So I got a microscope at the time, and it looked plain, but with a simple modification, it was able to take great images. It was very, very cold, so I didn't have to worry about the snowflakes on the microscope melting right away. It turned out to be some really good sights. The following *** in.
Lecture on the pulpit.
Don't let me fool you, how can you possibly see the growth of snowflakes under a microscope?Actually, this is the process of the snowflakes that I see slowly sublimatingThis ** is played upside down. So it was very amazing at the time, and it was very beautiful to see the snowflakes of various shapes slowly melting or sublimating in my field of vision.
That's what I did when I first photographed snowflakes, but then I realized that if I carried the microscope out and went to different places to look for snow, it would be much more enjoyable, and the snow was different in every place.
For example, once in Beijing, about 10 years ago, there was a heavy snowfall, and this heavy snow fell for about two days and one night. From start to finish, I started monitoring the shape of this snowflake.
At first, the snowflakes were like this. You see these ones one by one, and very delicateHexagonal small platesIn the same way, there are some patterns engraved on it, and there are some small bubbles inside, forming a magical structure.
And then after a while the snowflakes changed and became like this again. All sorts of these intricate little structures have emerged. Some resemble lace, some resemble a rudder, some resemble the leaves of a fern, and some grow a small fan at the tip.
The monitoring changed again, and each branch became very wide.
Re-monitoring has changed again. This snow has brought me a lot of gains. But I don't stop thereI also went to Xinjiang to chase snow a few times.
This place is now rarely visited, and it is in the Tianshan Mountains of Xinjiang.
You can see that the snow on the road is very, very thick, and the car is stuck in traffic for five hours.
At that time, I found that the snow there was not the same as Beijing, and there was a poem:"The snowflakes of Yanshan are as big as a seat, and the pieces blow down Xuanyuan Terrace"., where the heavy snow is really like a big goose ** down. What is the snow like here?Its structure is a little more complex than that seen in Beijing, and it is more branching.
The snowflakes slowly linked together and fell down to form a huge flake of snow, which could be made up of hundreds or thousands of small snowflakes. But there's another one more interestingIn Xinjiang, I once saw colorful snowflakes. Some people say it's not right, aren't snowflakes transparent?It is white to the naked eye, but transparent to the microscope.
Actually, it's not, there is color in this snowflakeIts color is because of some interference colors produced by the air inside.
There are also some snowflakes that look like this, and these are the ones we filmed in the Northeast. It was also very interesting, as the temperature dropped to more than minus 20 degrees, which was too cold. When I was in the middle of the boom, it was usually minus 10 degrees. At that time, my strategy was to wear it hard, and after wearing it, I couldn't put my arm down. There are all kinds of warm stickers on the body, and more than 20 warm stickers are pasted. Even then, you can only stay outside for about ten minutes. The snowflakes in the Northeast are even more beautifulIts structure is from top to bottom, producing different variations.
Swipe to view**) These are all snowflakes taken in Changchun and Jilin in Northeast China.
Of course, some snowflakes grow strangely. You see there are a few small snowflakes in the upper right corner of this picture, have you noticed?
Look at this,Like a person's embarrassing face?It's a different kind of snowflake, but we don't usually pay much attention to it. Today I will give you a brief demonstrationHow the hell do I shoot snowflakes? The following *** in.
Lecture on the pulpit.
Look, here's a microscope. So I connected the microscope to the camera, and then the microscope to the computer, and then we saw what kind of beautiful snowflakes we would find inside. Now the camera should be a black patch, and I took out a slide that I used to photograph snowflakes and put it underneath. Oops, the light is not enough. It doesn't matter, I have a plastic bag here, and a flashlight, and it will light up after a little "pop". Then I put it below, and below is the moment to witness the miracle. See snowflakes?The middle one is pretty one. To the left, to the right, there are many kinds of snowflakes around it. But these snowflakes aren't the standard hexagons we see every day, are they?Are all snowflakes hexagonal?Completed: 70%.
It has been said that there are only two things we know about snowflakes: the first is that no two snowflakes in the world are exactly the same;Another thing is that the snowflakes are hexagonal. Isn't that so?I'm sorry, but that's not really the case.
For example, this picture is a rare celestial phenomenon, which is called parhelion. Pay attention to the fact that there are two spots on the left and one on the right side of the sunThat is the parhelion.
Who formed the parhelion?They are formed, and this kind of snowflake is what we call a prismatic or spool. They're not hexagonal. Some people will also say, yes, it's not hexagonal, they're hexagonal prisms, they're hexagonal prefixes. Don't worry, there are very, very many types of snowflakes, only a few of them are in this standard hexagon, or six-forked shape.
This table is a classification chart of the more famous snowflakes, which divides the snowflakes into more than 100 categories. Only a small part of them are true hexagons.
If you look at it again, there are only a few hexagonal snowflakes that we are familiar with, the one in the middle, the one on the left, a few on the bottom, and none of the others.
In addition to this, there are some more individual, such as it. This is a snowflake I just caught at the beginning of this year (2022). I looked at it at the time, and this snowflake is good, triangular.
Some are three forks, and some are simply a triangle.
There are four corners, and there are such four horns. This is too godly, isn't it?!So that sentence is actually not true, "snowflakes are all hexagonal", it is not like this.
There are even twelve horned ones. Everyone pay attention to the snowflakes of the twelve corners, the first twelve corners are fine, the second twelve corners, the third twelve corners, and the fourth ......It was like two snowflakes stacked on top of each other. Is it possible that the twelve-pointed snowflakes are actually formed by two hexagonal snowflakes stacked on top of each other?This question has been bothering me for a long time, but as I slowly observe, I have an answer to this question.
Look at this, for example. This is a snowfall that I remember very well, and it happened in Beijing. At that time, I was working in Taiwan, and the snow was falling at noon, so I took a microscope to shoot, and two colleagues at that time said, "Zhang Chao, you said that you usually shoot snowflakes, let me see how you shoot them." I said, "Well, just see." So I took them both down. I found a place to start using the microscope, connected the camera, and let it cool. I didn't say this just now, this must be cooled for a while, if it doesn't cool, it will be troublesome, and the snowflakes will melt when they go up. At this time, there were two of these twelve-petaled snowflakes, one on a piece of glass, which was not placed by me, nor by me, and it fell together. I said it was so rare that two twelve-petal snowflakes fell together. As a result, at this time, a friend next to me said, "Teacher Zhang, look, what is on your arm?""When I looked, there was a fluffy snowflake on my arm, and I couldn't see it clearly. I said this, I'm going to use a spell — not a spell, a technique, let's stick the snowflakes over. This technique requires special care, and generally we use a rabbit quill or a small needle to separate the snowflakes under the microscope, and that time I took the risk of sticking the snowflakes with a glass slide. After sticking it down, put it under the microscope and look at it, guess how many petals does this snowflake have?There are twenty-four petals.
A gift from the cloudsCompleted: 90%.
I've been observing and collecting for about 10 years, and I've had thousands of snowflakes so far, but so far, when it snows, I'm still out with my equipment on my back. Because every snowfall gives me a different experience. Sometimes when I go out, this snow is completely amorphous, not crystallized, it doesn't look good at all, and there is nothing good to wait for a snow;Sometimes when it snows, there are very beautiful snowflakes, and the branches are very abundant, and the variety is something I have never seen beforeOther times, like this, seeing some species that I haven't seen before, it seems like I've got something really amazing. Although our science is very advanced now, and we know a lot of things, are we really fully aware of the things around us?It's like astronomy I studied. Every day I still have the Xi of looking at the sky, using my mobile phone or small camera to look at the clouds in the sky. As long as I see something strange, I will take a picture and make a record of the sky. Sometimes I would place small pieces of glass by the windowsill to catch the tiny meteor dust that fell from the sky. When a meteor streaks through the atmosphere, it burns into small particles, which are tiny meteorites, very, very small. After it falls, it can be picked up and studied by us. It's a gift from the sky, and so does a snowflake, and it's also a gift from a cloud. It tells us many, many stories about what's going on in the upper atmosphere. So even though we are still living on earth, we are just looking up at the sky, but we also have the means to obtain these mysterious, unknown, information from the heavens. I think whether it's astronomy or my photomicrography, this yearning for the unknown and mystery is probably the same as yours. So I hope you too,Let's explore some of the worlds around us that have been neglected, but are very mysterious. Thank you!