Most people would bet their house on this one: the sky is blue and snow is white. Right? Well, not quite. Water in pure form is clear and snowflakes are just a collection of ice crystals formed from frozen water. So what’s going on? The way we see colour is dictated by our eyes detecting frequencies of visible light and how that light reflects from certain objects.

Ice is not transparent (you cannot see right through it like you can with glass). It is translucent (meaning light enters but fails to pass directly through). As light hits one of the ice crystals, it changes direction and bounces around the other little crystals, before eventually bouncing out again.

All the reflections mean the light ends up with no preference to either side of the visible spectrum – therefore appearing white.

Basically, all the crystals bounce the light all around so that it comes right back out of the snow pile. It does the same thing to all the different light frequencies, so all colours of light are bounced back out.

The ‘colour’ of all the frequencies in the visible spectrum combined in equal measure is white, so this is the colour we see in snow, while it’s not the colour we see in the individual ice crystals that form snow.

So when you hear somebody talking about having a white Christmas, they may be right in saying that the blanket of snow outside their homes appears white even though the individual ice crystals are clear.

But much like snowflakes, any argument that snow is white does not hold much water. Dream all you want about a White Christmas – it’s just not happening.

Find more myths debunked at https://scienceonthego.griffith.edu.au/ .

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