Episode Transcript Arpita: 0:12 Hi everyone, and welcome back to the Smart Tea Podcast, where we talk about the lives of scientists and innovators who shape the world. How are you, Aarati? Aarati: 0:21 I'm doing pretty well, Arpita. I feel like, you know, I'm lacking motivation to do anything. It's December, it's like between holidays, and so I'm just like, okay, can we just cruise on through the end of this year? I'm so ready for this year to be over. Arpita: 0:37 I hear that. I also feel the same way. I'm unfortunately not receiving that from the world that I'm living in. My, Work has been so busy.'cause I think everyone is trying to spend their budgets before the end of the year. Aarati: 0:55 Mm hmm. Arpita: 0:55 and there's so many really tight timelines and I am just like every day feel inundated with tasks. And I work east coast hours and so this morning I had a meeting at like 6:30 in the morning Aarati: 1:09 Oh my god. Arpita: 1:10 uh, We joke about how I'm a morning person. I am a morning person. However, to be, like, awake and ready to talk to a client at 6. 30 in the morning is a really different requirement than wake up at 6. 30 in the morning to pet a cat and make some coffee. Like, those are really different things. I have to, like, get dressed, wash my face, make some coffee, like, slap my, like, slap myself Aarati: 1:37 Yeah, like look awake and be presentable and have interesting things to say. Arpita: 1:43 Yes, and like, get on early enough that I can get my ducks in a row so that when I have to actually talk about things, I can sound smart and know what I'm talking about. Aarati: 1:53 It's just like, yeah, us in California, I feel like we always get the brunt end of those morning meetings. It's like, what time is convenient for everyone? Oh yeah, well, it's 12 o'clock for you, but it's, 6 30 for me. Yeah. Arpita: 2:06 Oh, that's tough. Aarati: 2:07 Yeah. It's really tough. Arpita: 2:09 It's, it's really tough. Um, I am or except my exciting news is that I'm starting a new job on Monday and will hopefully share more very soon, but this will require me to work pacific time hours like everybody else. Aarati: 2:23 Excellent. Arpita: 2:23 maybe I will return to a normal person schedule where I go to bed at a normal time and wake up at a normal time and end work at a normal time. Aarati: 2:31 Congratulations. Yeah, congratulations. I think it's been a, it's been a tough year for you with all the weddings and all the morning meetings and everything, so I think you deserve a kind of relaxing 2025. Arpita: 2:46 I'm very much hoping that, that, I'm hoping that after this week, things will sort of settle down a little bit more as I, you know, quote, unquote, onboard. I'm hoping that I'll just sit there and click through a bunch of trainings and not do a lot of work like that would be great. to Aarati: 3:04 All those cyber security type Arpita: 3:07 exactly. I'll do all the sexual harassment, all the cyber security. That's what I want to do. I want to click through a bunch of trainings and not do anything for the Aarati: 3:15 That sounds wonderful. Arpita: 3:16 That's what I'm manifesting. Aarati: 3:17 Yes. That sounds wonderful. And I think, yeah, it makes a lot of sense too. Like why, why jump all the way into a job when you could just start in January after all the holidays? That makes a lot of sense. Arpita: 3:29 Exactly. Exactly. So Aarati: 3:31 great. That sounds Arpita: 3:32 where I'm at. I'm ready for the rest of my year to be cozy. Aarati: 3:35 Yes. Well, speaking of cozy, I have a very cozy story for you today. Arpita: 3:42 I'm excited. Aarati: 3:43 So originally we were planning not to do one in December, but then I was like, this story is just so apt for this time of year. And it's short. It's a shorter story. So this is probably going to be a shorter episode. But it's a good one and it's just like, you can have fun with it. There's no hard thinking involved. It's just a really, yeah, it's Arpita: 4:04 We don't have to think about physics, or math, or chemistry. We don't have to think about how different reactions occur. Oh my gosh, what a treat! Aarati: 4:14 just, yeah, it's just a really fun, nice, cute story that I think you're gonna like. It's like a little Christmas gift to you. Arpita: 4:22 Thank you! Oh my gosh, I can't, I can't wait. This is actually exactly what I needed. You know, every once in a while, I think about, Emmy Noether's story, and how I just was staring at you with blank eyes as you said words. Aarati: 4:37 Yeah. Arpita: 4:38 And I was like, Aarati: 4:40 Yes. And I was trying so hard. I'm like, I am trying to explain this in a way that makes sense but also won't get all the physicists mad at me. Arpita: 4:52 No, you did a great job. It was not you. It was, in fact, me. And I was just like, huh? Aarati: 5:00 That was a one. Arpita: 5:01 I think about that every once in a while and I'm just like, damn, that was a crazy episode. Aarati: 5:04 That a crazy episode, and if you'll notice, I have not really forayed back into that world of mathematics and physics since then. Arpita: 5:13 You definitely made me realize that that is not something I'm capable of doing. I'm Aarati: 5:17 crazy. I'm not either, it was my brother and, it was every, all the other physicists in my life who helped me through that. yeah, so this Arpita: 5:26 Thank Aarati: 5:27 this is Arpita: 5:28 Not, Not, Emmy Noether. Aarati: 5:30 No, is completely the opposite. Today we're going to be talking about a man named Wilson Bentley, who is also known as the Snowflake Man. Arpita: 5:39 I'm already obsessed. Aarati: 5:40 yes. So, very, very wintry December story. So, lLet's get into his life. Wilson was born on February 9th, 1865 in Jericho, Vermont. Many people in that area were farmers, including his father, Thomas Edwin Bentley, and his older brother, Charlie. His mother, Fanny, had been a school teacher before she got married, and so she homeschooled Wilson until he was 14. Arpita: 6:11 My cat's shelter name was Fanny. Aarati: 6:13 Really? I'm not sure how I feel about the name Fanny for a cat Arpita: 6:20 it didn't, it didn't last long actually, that was, she was promptly renamed. Aarati: 6:24 Poppy is very cute. Arpita: 6:26 I agree, thank you. I think Poppy is very cute too, but she was, her shelter name was Fanny, and then Pepper's shelter name was Max, so they would have been Max and Fanny, which is like maybe cute, but Aarati: 6:37 That sounds like grandparents names Grandpa Max and Grandma Fanny That Arpita: 6:43 That's actually, that's Aarati: 6:44 sound like that. Yeah shelter name was Enzo, which is close, but Arpita: 6:51 actually not bad, but yeah, why are these all grandparent Aarati: 6:54 Yeah, Yeah, very Italian grandpa name. So, yeah. Yeah, but, uh, Fanny, his mother, was a school teacher and homeschooled Wilson until he was 14. And she was really the one who instilled this love of learning in Wilson and encouraged his fascination with nature. So he would study trees, insects, and kept a journal where he recorded the weather. And his mother also had a set of encyclopedias that he kind of just bookwormed his way through. So just loved to learn and she really encouraged that. So, even though he lived in a community of farmers who, as a rule, hated the long, hard winter months because nothing would grow in the winter, uh, that was actually Little Wilson's favorite season. He lived for winter. They lived in an area called the Snow Belt, and they would get up to 120 inches of snow every year. Arpita: 7:53 Wait, where was this? Aarati: 7:54 In Jericho, Vermont, Arpita: 7:56 Oh, okay, I missed that for some reason. I heard the Jericho and then I didn't process Vermont. That makes a lot of sense Aarati: 8:03 Yeah. So, Wilson looked forward to winter every single year. Kind of sounds like basically from the beginning he was born with this innate fascination for snow and snowflakes. Later in his life, Wilson said, quote, It was my mother that made it possible for me at 15 to begin the work to which I have devoted my life. She had a small microscope, which she had used in her school teaching. When the other boys of my age were playing with pop guns and slingshots, I was absorbed in studying things under this microscope. Drops of water, tiny fragments of stone, a feather dropped from a bird's wing, a delicately veined petal from some flower. But always, from the beginning, it was snowflakes that fascinated me most. The farm folk up in this north country dread the winter, but I was supremely happy from the day of the first snowfall, which usually came in November, until the last one, which sometimes came as late as May. Yeah. Arpita: 8:59 It's really cute. Do you watch Gilmore Girls? Aarati: 9:02 I do not. Arpita: 9:04 There's the main character Lorelei is obsessed with snow and the first snow especially and there's all every season. There's an episode where she has like the first snow where she's so excited about it. I can't relate as a Californian, but that's what that reminds me of. It's like everyone around her is like snow is the worst. It causes so many problems and she's always so excited about snow and I've been doing my Yearly rewatch of Gilmore Girls. That's what it made me think of. Can't relate but it is cute Aarati: 9:31 No, I can't relate either. I I'm a summer person for sure and I was feeling cold while writing this story. It was like, I know it's all in my head, but I was just like, Oh my God, it's like snowflakes. Yeah, but I'm so lucky to live in California in December when it's like 75 degrees out and it's so nice, like, yeah, so I can't, I can't relate, but I'm glad he lived in a place where he could study snowflakes to his heart's content. So Wilson spent a couple of years looking at snowflake crystals under this microscope and he became fascinated with the beauty of them. He would make sketches trying to capture what he saw because he really wanted to be able to share what he was seeing with others, but he wasn't very happy with his drawings because he couldn't capture all of the intricate details before the snowflake melted. Mm hmm. Yeah. He said, quote, I found that snowflakes were masterpieces of design. No design was ever repeated. When a snowflake melted, just that much beauty was gone without leaving any record behind, end quote. Arpita: 10:38 Yeah, I do agree that snowflakes are very pretty like when the like crystal structures fall on your jacket If you're wearing with black gloves or like a black jacket, especially with like high contrast. They do look very pretty Very pretty, unfortunately. I know. Aarati: 10:55 And yeah, we were just talking about this earlier, but I've started putting all the episodes of our podcast up on YouTube and like, I have pictures where I can find them about people's childhood or what they were studying, and I'm so excited to put this one on YouTube because there are going to be so many snowflake pictures. of like all the snowflakes that he took. So I'm really excited once this one gets up there. So yeah, cause they're beautiful. Um, so after a few years of trying to draw the snowflakes, Wilson read about a new type of camera that could take pictures through a microscope. So he asked his parents if they would buy the camera for him. And although his mother was totally excited for him and was on board. His father was the one they needed to convince. And his father was like, we're farmers. Like, why are you screwing around with snowflakes and microscopes? That's not practical at all. But finally his mother and Wilson together both made Wilson's father cave and they bought a bellows camera, which is a very large type of camera. So in keeping with the farming theme, the camera was said to be larger than a baby calf and cost as much as Wilson's father's herd of cows. Yeah. Yeah. Arpita: 12:09 Wait, what? I mean, I guess this is the era that we're talking about where, you know, things are obviously not as sleek as we think about of them now, but a baby calf? Aarati: 12:20 Yeah, it, like, I've seen pictures of it or, like, videos of it, like, you can't hold it. It needs to be sitting on a table. And it kind of looks like a giant accordion, um, like, the bellows of an accordion, hence the name Bellows Camera. Yeah, so it's, it's gigantic. Yeah. So the lens of the camera is at the end of the accordion like structure, and the lens can be moved backwards and forwards so you can focus on whatever your subject is. Arpita: 12:47 Mmm. Okay. Aarati: 12:49 Yeah. Yeah. So, he got this camera, but that's barely, like, step one of this process he has to go through to take a picture of a snowflake. So, first of all, photography's a very new field at this time, and most people were taking portraits of people. So, Like, although the Bellows camera had the ability to take pictures through a microscope, no one was really using it to do that. Arpita: 13:16 Got it. Okay. Aarati: 13:17 So, Wilson had to find a way to attach the microscope to the camera so he could take pictures. Then he had to actually learn how to use the camera, and I'm, like, remember he lives in this farming community, like, there's no one to teach him that. Arpita: 13:33 it's not as simple as, you know, like, clicking a button. He has to figure out the film and how to process it. Like, all Aarati: 13:39 Yeah, yeah, because he has to, like, figure out how to develop it and, like, all the, yeah, everything. And it's not like he had Google at that time where he could just, like, watch a tutorial video or something, you know? Arpita: 13:51 Yeah. He had to, he was reading encyclopedias. Also, I clearly remember being in elementary school, middle school, before Google was as ubiquitous as it is now and if you wanted to know something, you had to go to a book and look it up. Like, can you, can you imagine doing that now? Like, I cannot. Like, I realized this was a part of my childhood and my life, and I, and yet I cannot fathom not Googling every passing thought that I have in my brain. Aarati: 14:20 Yeah. Arpita: 14:22 Like, please never look at my Google search history, I feel like this is such a ubiquitous thing Aarati: 14:25 It's so random. Arpita: 14:27 no, I don't want, I don't want people to know what my random thought processes are. Aarati: 14:31 Yeah, no. Like, I remember in elementary school when we did reports, we learned that the way to, find information about whatever topic you were researching was go to library, find that section in the library that talks Arpita: 14:44 the Dewey Decimal System, the card catalogs, yeah. Aarati: 14:48 It's just like, oh my gosh, and then it was such a process. Yeah. And then all of a sudden it's like, Oh, you could just Google it. Arpita: 14:55 It's crazy. So he's learning how to process film. Aarati: 14:59 He's, he's learning how to use the camera, process film. Next, he had to actually collect the snowflakes. So, the way he did this was he would walk around outside with a tray that had a piece of black velvet on it to catch the snowflakes on. And when a bunch of snowflakes would clump together, he would gently separate them using a turkey or chicken feather, which was very easy to come by on the farm. And then he would place this tray of separated snowflakes under the microscope and try to take a picture, but if the camera wasn't focused, the wheel to focus it was up near the front of the camera, and so he couldn't look into the camera and focus it at the same time. Yeah. So he had to rig up like this little string and pulley system So he could focus the camera while he was looking through it. Arpita: 15:48 Oh my god. Also, like, isn't there a, there's probably a light bulb, no? To create some sort of light in order to take the picture? Isn't that emitting heat? Like, how are these individual snowflakes not melting? Aarati: 16:01 So yeah, that was my next sentence actually like after all of this. There's the very real possibility that the snowflake would melt Yeah, especially because like again since photography is so new exposure times could be up to 90 seconds long to get a good photograph Arpita: 16:18 90 seconds? Oh my gosh. Aarati: 16:20 Yeah. Arpita: 16:20 That's so crazy. Aarati: 16:21 So your thing has to like stay still and perfect and pristine for 90 seconds. So to help with that, all of his work had to be done outside or in a really cold shed in the middle of winter. Arpita: 16:34 Sounds fun. Aarati: 16:35 Yeah. He loved it though. The first winter after he got his camera, he didn't get any good pictures of snowflakes at all. Uh, they all just looked like shadows or kept melting before he could properly focus the camera and capture their image. But he kept on trying and making tweaks to his setup, and finally, in a huge snowstorm on January 15th, 1885, he managed to capture the first photomicrographs of his snowflakes. He said, quote, the day that I developed the first negative made by this method and found it good. I felt almost like falling on my knees beside that apparatus and worshiping it. It was the greatest moment of my life. Arpita: 17:15 Oh, Aarati: 17:17 Yeah. Arpita: 17:17 cute. Aarati: 17:18 Yeah. can just imagine him being like so happy that after years he's finally got his picture of a snowflake. Hi everyone, Aarati here. I hope you're enjoying the podcast. If so, and you wish someone would tell your science story, I founded a science communications company called Sykom, that's S Y K O M, that can help. Sykom blends creativity with scientific accuracy to create all types of science communications content, including explainer videos, slide presentations, science writing, and more. We work with academic researchers, tech companies, non profits, or really any scientist to help simplify your science. Check us out at sykommer. com. That's S Y K O M M E R dot com. Okay, back to the story. Over the next 13 years, Wilson kept taking pictures of snowflakes and perfecting his method for developing the photos. But interestingly, he didn't try too hard to share them with the rest of the world, because most of his, like, immediate community that he was in, the farmers around him weren't really as fascinated by snowflakes as he was. And he totally understood this. Yeah. He totally got it. Yeah. Yeah. He was just like, like he understood that most people just saw his pictures as pretty and then that's like about it. Um, there's nothing to get super obsessed about. So, he would share his pictures with friends and family, and he even sold a few pictures for just a few pennies or turned them into birthday cards. And some nights he would also hang a bed sheet over a clothesline and project images of the snowflakes so that people could just come and see them. Like a little nightly neighborhood slideshow kind of thing. Arpita: 19:13 That's cute. Aarati: 19:14 Yeah. but although his neighbors and the farmers in his community weren't too interested, it started to attract the attention of artists who became inspired by the snowflake's crystal structures because, as we mentioned, they are beautiful. But it also attracted the attention of university professors, including one named George Henry Perkins, who is a professor of natural history at the University of Vermont. Professor Perkins convinced Wilson that even though he didn't have formal scientific training or anything, he really did have something special and he should share his work with the outside world. So, Wilson collaborated with Professor Perkins to publish his first article in 1898 in Appleton's popular scientific monthly called, A Study of Snow Crystals., In this paper, Wilson published some of the pictures he had taken and laid out his method for taking the pictures. And he also talked about some of the things that he had learned about snow crystal formation. For example, he had seen that each snowflake begins as a tiny speck of water that forms around a dust particle in the sky. And then as it falls, more water attaches to it and freezes outward in branches. Arpita: 20:29 I don't think I knew that. I that makes a ton of sense. It needs something to attach to, but like even any kind of crystal needs something to attach to. I just didn't really Aarati: 20:40 I think rain also forms the same way, like raindrops, which we'll get but raindrops do form kind of around the same, like they need a little dust particle or something to, so that the water can collect around it. Arpita: 20:55 Makes sense. I've never thought about it. Yeah, Aarati: 20:58 Yeah. And because of the fact that water always freezes in a hexagonal lattice structure, snowflakes are always hexagonal. Arpita: 21:07 Yeah. And then crystals probably like branch off of that Aarati: 21:10 Yeah. Which is also, like, I never really thought about that before, but I was like, that's true, like, snowflakes are, do always have like six sides, or symmetry around six sides. So many different things affect how the branches of the snowflake grow, including how much wind and moisture is in the air, and the temperature changes in the different layers of the atmosphere as the snowflake falls. Crystals formed in warmer weather temperatures were larger and had more branches than the ones formed when it was colder. Arpita: 21:45 Interesting. Aarati: 21:46 Yeah, so I've seen like pictures of this, the ones that form when it's colder, they almost look like hexagonal kind of dinner plates, you know, there's not that many Arpita: 21:55 Uh huh. Aarati: 21:56 Branches coming off, um, but the ones that are formed in the warmer kind of temperatures, they look more almost like a fractal, like a lot of different small little, you know, branches going this way. They're more like quintessentially what we think of as a snowflake. Arpita: 22:12 Yeah. Like your third grade project, cut up snowflake. Aarati: 22:16 Exactly. And he even thought that if we continue to study and understand all of the different factors that go into snowflake formation, he really believed that one day we might be able to just look at a picture of a snowflake, like any snowflake, and be able to tell exactly what type of storm it came from, how high up in the atmosphere it was formed, which way the wind was blowing, how cold it was, and whether it was a blizzard or just a gentle flurry, all from just the photograph of one snowflake. He also made the assertion that every snowflake he had seen up to that point seemed to be unique. He had never seen two snowflakes that had exactly the same shape, and by this time he had taken literally hundreds of pictures. Arpita: 22:59 That's definitely something. Aarati: 23:00 Yeah. that's why I kind of got interested in this, because I've heard that saying, like, no two are alike. and I was like, who came up with that? Like who like who figured that out? You know? And that's how I learned about Wilson Bentley in the first place. So this paper pushed Wilson into the public eye. He started publishing more in articles in National Geographic, Nature, Popular Science and Scientific American. Academic researchers started requesting copies of his snowflake pictures to study. Jewelers and engravers also started asking of his photos so they could use them as inspiration. Arpita: 23:40 That makes a ton of sense. Aarati: 23:41 Yeah. In 1904, he donated a collection of 500 snowflake photos to the Smithsonian, and that was huge for him to know that the Smithsonian would like, be taking care of them, and making portion of his life's work would be protected. So, he happy happy.... Arpita: 24:01 That's huge. Aarati: 24:01 about that. Yeah. He also expanded his work to take photographs of other things in nature, but especially anything having to do with snow, rain, or dew. So. Very moisture related, Arpita: 24:14 Like, weather. Aarati: 24:15 Weather. Yes. He was the first American to measure the size of raindrops, and the way he did this was actually interesting. He sifted some flour from the kitchen, just like all purpose wheat flour, into a pan, and then he held the pan in the rain for a few seconds. And then when a raindrop fell into the flour, it would soak up the flour and form a tiny little dough ball that Wilson would dry and then measure. Arpita: 24:44 Wow. That is quite interesting. That is genius. And I guess you would need it to be raining very gently for that, right? So that you don't end up with more than one raindrop in one spot. Aarati: 24:56 Or like, you just have to be really fast about it. If it's like a like heavy downpour like, yeah. Arpita: 25:02 yeah. Aarati: 25:03 one second. Yeah. So from 1898 to 1904, he measured 344 raindrops across 70 different storms and reported his finding in the Monthly Weather Review. Arpita: 25:17 So you just have all these little tiny balls of dough that he's just like, Aarati: 25:21 Yeah, this is, this this raindrop and this raindrop. He found that the largest raindrops were about six millimeters and that different types of storms had different types of raindrops. So very much snowflakes. Arpita: 25:35 It's It's starting to give spectrum, but yeah, let's going. Aarati: 25:39 Yeah, a little bit. His, like, one minded obsession this since he was like, ten. Yeah. Arpita: 25:48 I thought that earlier, but now, now I feel it more definitively. Aarati: 25:51 Yes. And speaking of which, like, he's doing all of this while he's primarily being a farmer Arpita: 25:57 Right, that's what I'm not full time job. No, this like a fun side project for him. Aarati: 26:03 Yeah. Arpita: 26:04 which another level of dimension to this. It's like, yeah, I did a lot of weird shit in the lab too, but that was my primary occupation. That was what I was actively being paid to do and this is real different. Aarati: 26:16 Yes, this is really, like, he's spending every spare moment he has thinking about this and doing this. When his father passed away, Wilson and his brother Charlie took over the farm, and they even expanded it, so they're doing really well. Wilson never married, but Charlie did, and Charlie had eight children. So, Yeah, so Charlie's family took over half of the farmhouse, and Wilson had a great time with all his nieces and nephews, and he kind of, I feel like, turned into his mother in a way, in that he really encouraged his nieces and nephews to go explore nature, and they would bring him back things to photograph, from all their, Arpita: 26:57 That's very cute. That feels like something a little kid would love. Aarati: 27:01 Yeah, I could just imagine a little kid going like, Uncle Wilson, I found a leaf. Can you take a picture under your microscope? And he'd be excited too. He'd be like, yes, let's do it. So by 1920, Wilson had written numerous articles, both in scientific journals, but also for the general public. He really wanted others to see the beauty of snowflakes. He became known across the nation as the Snowflake Man or Snowflake Bentley. He continued to take pictures of snowflakes for the rest of his life, as well as basically become an amateur meteorologist. In 1924, the American Meteorological Society gave the first research grant they ever awarded to Wilson for 40 years of extremely patient work. Arpita: 27:47 Wow. Aarati: 27:47 Yeah, it was less than 4, 000, but Wilson was just thrilled to be recognized by the scientific community in general. Arpita: 27:55 I mean, just like an amateur scientist, but the fact that he's publishing papers at all or academic or academic recognition Aarati: 28:03 yes. Arpita: 28:04 Is huge. I feel like definitely in a strong contrast to a lot of the other people we've talked about who are doing this as their profession, as we've mentioned, and he's just doing this for fun. Aarati: 28:15 Mm hmm, yeah. And I think that's, he totally recognized that and he was just like, I'm so honored that the scientific community actually recognizes my hobby as something worth, you know, worth being studied and worth being recognized by the scientific community. So in 1931, a physicist who worked at the U. S. Weather Bureau, Dr. William J. Humphreys, had heard about Wilson's photomicrographs and reached out to him about publishing a collection of his best snowflakes. While Dr. Humphreys gathered funding for the project, Wilson sorted through his collection of snowflake photos. At this point, he had taken over 5, 300 snowflake photos. Arpita: 29:01 Wow. Aarati: 29:01 Just, a ridiculous number. Arpita: 29:04 That's so many. Aarati: 29:06 Together, they found a publisher, and in November that year, a book called Snow Crystals was published, which contained almost 2, 500 images, including 100 photos of frost and dew. And that book is still in print today, so you can go buy a copy. I feel like that'd be a really nice, like, coffee table book. Arpita: 29:28 Yeah, totally. Vintage is very cool right now. Aarati: 29:31 Right? All these, like, vintage photomicrographs. That'd be amazing. So this was a huge achievement, and I'm sure Wilson was just overjoyed to have his work immortalized this way. But unfortunately, he didn't get much time to bask in his accomplishment because just a week or so later he was walking through a snowstorm around Jericho and he contracted pneumonia. By the time a doctor was called, it was too late and on December 23rd, 1931, Wilson died at the age of 66. Arpita: 30:04 Yeah, it's crazy how, I don't know, lethal pneumonia was until so recently. We don't think of it, I mean it still sucks, but you don't think about it as something that kills you, usually. Aarati: 30:16 Yeah, usually. I did also find it kind of ironic that, you Arpita: 30:21 didn't want to say that, but Aarati: 30:22 yeah. it is. Arpita: 30:23 I didn't want to say that. Aarati: 30:24 Yeah. But it is. As for his legacy, he wasn't as illustrious as some of the other scientists we've talked about, but he still got a fair amount of recognition. At Vermont State University, the Bentley Science Hall is named for him. Arpita: 30:39 Mm hmm. Aarati: 30:40 In addition to the book he published, a number of museums have displayed his photo micrographs, including the Fairbanks Museum and Planetarium in Vermont and the Field Museum in Chicago. And in 1999, a children's book about Wilson's life called Snowflake Bentley, written by Jacqueline Briggs Martin and illustrated by Mary Azarian, won the Caldecott Medal. I actually read that book as part of my research for this story. Arpita: 31:08 research? Aarati: 31:09 Yes. It was very nice having pictures and like an illustrated guide through his life. Arpita: 31:16 Yeah. Aarati: 31:16 Yeah. Arpita: 31:17 I definitely didn't have a resource like that for any of the stories that put together. Aarati: 31:21 I know, right? Like, usually we're sifting through... Arpita: 31:23 They're usually way drier. yeah, Aarati: 31:25 yeah, these all scientific articles. Arpita: 31:27 Some dry... Aarati: 31:28 yeah, and I'm like, oh, this is great. I'm reading a children's book for research purposes. Yes. Arpita: 31:34 Love it. Aarati: 31:34 Yeah, yeah, but that's. That's pretty much his story. It's a short one, but hopefully a fun one to get us through the holiday season. Arpita: 31:43 Very cute. I loved it. That was a really good story. Very cozy, like you said, and it didn't make me think too hard, which I appreciate, Aarati: 31:50 Yes. Arpita: 31:51 Especially today. Aarati: 31:52 I don't, I don't think we should think, I think we should all just turn our brains off for the rest of the year. So that's it. Arpita: 31:59 Strong agree. agree. I love it. Awesome. I guess before we wrap, a couple very quick announcements. We will be taking a break until the new year, so enjoy your holiday. We will also be taking some time and then we will see you all in January. Um, and then Aarati our social media queen, uh, usually on Twitter and we are now migrating to Blue Sky. Um, you can find us there in the same handle. And Social Media Queen Aarati has also been posting on YouTube, as we mentioned earlier. So if you prefer to consume your podcast via YouTube, you can also find us there Aarati: 32:44 I'm a little bit behind right now on the YouTube, but I'll catch up as fast as I can. I'm like adding pictures of, like I mentioned, the people's lives and the work that they did. And so sometimes I feel like it's just nice to have a visual of some of the things that we're about, if possible. Um, yeah. So I'm going through, I think I'm at episode 17 right now. So I have a few more before I'm totally caught up, but, um, yeah, definitely go check out. The YouTube channel if you want to just have a visual while you listen along. Arpita: 33:17 And yeah, thank you for following along with us for a whole year. Aarati: 33:22 Um, Yes. I think it is a year. Arpita: 33:24 Yeah, I think we started doing this in December 2023. So thanks for following along with us for a whole year. We're hoping to continue to grow so stick around. And hope you all have a great holiday. Aarati: 33:36 Yes. Happy holidays everyone. Arpita: 33:38 Thanks for listening. If you have a suggestion for a story we should cover or thoughts you want to share about an episode, reach out to us at smartteapodcast. com. You can follow us on Instagram, TikTok, and Bluesky at smartteapodcast, and listen to us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. Leave us a rating or comment, it really helps us grow. New episodes are released every other Wednesday. See you next time!