Can we grow a snowflake from one simple rule? Let's try the rule: Ice spreads only at corners. Start with a hexagon grid, one white hexagon in middle. Then any neighboring hexagons touching just one white turn white themselves, as if ice grows only at the corners, starting with a hexagonal ice plate. This is not too far from the real process, but greatly oversimplified, see below notes.
A real snow crystal begins as a growing hexagonal plate. Then, if humidity is high enough, branches sprout from the six corners of the hexagonal ice plate when the crystal grows larger. The most elaborate branched crystals grow when humidity is higher. Simple hexagonal prisms, columns without branches, grow when humidity is lower. For more on how snowflakes really form, see: lifepatternsemerging dot com/frozen-fractals/ The following look like snowflakes, pretty ones, but are not based on the above two stage mechanism: Christmas trees turn to snowflakes: https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/774663718/ Snowflake as growing fractal trees: https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/762116563/ Generate many diverse snowflakes: https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/764512283/
