Wilson Bentley

Wilson Alwyn Bentley ( born February 9, 1865 in Jericho, Vermont, † December 23, 1931 ) was an American farmer, photographer and researcher snow.

Biography

Bentley, his main occupation farmer on his family farm in the United States, succeeded on January 15, 1885 as one of the first people to photograph snow crystals under a microscope. The procedure to he himself had developed. Overall, he photographed more than 5,000 snow crystals. His 1931 published book Snow Crystals contains more than 2,400 of his photos. The photographic plates he bequeathed to the Buffalo Museum of Science.

In an article from 1922 Bentley made ​​the case that every snow crystal is shaped differently ("no two snowflakes are alike" ). For this purpose, he relied on his previous observations always different crystals, which, of course, the positive proof was not furnished that really all snowflakes have to be different. Nancy Knight, a snow researcher from the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, in an essay from 1988 published the photos of two apparently completely identical snowflakes.

Works

• Thompson, Jean M., Illustrated by Bentley, Wilson A.: Water Wonders Every Child Should Know ( Garden City: Doubleday, Page & Co. 1913)
• Bentley, Wilson A.: The Guide to Nature. 1922
• Bentley, Wilson A.: The Magic of Snow and Dew. National Geographic 1923.
• Bentley, Wilson A. and Humphreys, William J.: Snow Crystals. McGraw- Hill, New York 1931
• Knight, N. (1988 ): No two alike? Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society 69 ( 5), 496