Explaining Frost patterns - contamination, speed of freezing, ,extropy, entropy, lots more....

Submitted by Jeff Buster on Mon, 01/23/2012 - 14:37.

This dual style frost pattern formed on the inside of a storm window glass - the straight line frost was towards the center of the window and the "crystal" patterns are near the edge of the glass.

Clean water (distilled) when solidified generally presents a 6 lobed crystal - the lobes radiating at 60 degrees from one another - generated by the molecular structure of water.

But if you add the residue on the surface of the glass left from a glass cleaner or solvent - what is the molecular structure of the moisture on the glass then?

The straight line crystals on the right hand of the image intersect at very acute angles - much less than 60 degrees.

At the interface between the straight lines and the more "conventional" frost there are loops where the conventional does a turn and then goes off in the opposite direction in a straight line.

The straight lines have a pattern similarity to an aerial view of dirt roads in the Mojave Desert. What's that similarity all about?

How is "contamination" of silica crystals used to make photo voltaic electrical generation?

How about the similarity to the header image today?