Snow, mountains, Switzerland, Snowflake, EBSD cake

Apart from the first one, the photographs were all taken in Switzerland, about 3 hours drive from Zurich, during December 2017. The cake pictures are from South Africa.

snowflake, crystal, hexagonal symmetry, Mathew Peet

A flake of snow, photographed by Mathew Peet, one cold day in Cambridge. The flake has hexagonal symmetry. The substrate is a large, plastic green bin used for recycling. The hexagonal crystal structure of ice is the common form, whereas the diamond cubic form is stable at cryogenic temperatures.

	Icicles, formed by water that freezes while dripping.

EBSD cake made by Soraya von Willingh (in the foreground), University of Cape Town, South Africa, in honour of Karine who is leaving for Brazil.

EBSD stands for electron back-scattered diffraction. The junctions between the grain boundaries on the cake are not at equilibrium. Soraya has many other creations related to cakes and is the Scientific Officer at the Centre for Materials Engineering.