Snowflake’s fourfold symmetry is pure fantasy | Brief letters
When is a snowflake not a snowflake? Answer: when it has fourfold symmetry, like the graphic used with your article (Poor little snowflake, G2, 29 October). How could you make such a mistake? If you are determined to include a snowflake graphic, please get it right. Your snowflakes appear to be made of cubic ice, a metastable polymorph not seen in blizzards or snowballs. An interesting idea but sadly a fantasy. Regular bog-standard ice comprises a hexagonal array of water molecules, so snowflakes likewise have sixfold symmetry. You silly snowflakes!
Roger Davey
Chester
" Young people's need for "safe spaces" is completely understandable. I'm quite old now but still need mine: it's my bedroom, usually with a favourite book and a cat. But speakers' platforms and debating chambers are intended as verbal battlegrounds and have no business being anybody's safe space.
Jan Chamier
London