profile

Rick A. Allen

Beautiful as individuals, deadly in mass

Published 4 months ago • 2 min read

​View in browser​

Beautiful as individuals, deadly in mass

Dear Reader,

It's that time of year again, when (depending on where you live) the snow falls. When I lived in Syracuse, it was inundating feet of snow with the redeeming factor that Syracuse has more snowplows per capita than anywhere else (or at least I thought so).

It's much nicer here in Colorado Springs, where we get less snow and it melts away much quicker. And I can enjoy seeing snow on the top of Pikes Peak while my driveway is clear.

It's often said that no two snowflakes are alike, and while I used to think that was a myth, it turns out it's pretty true. And scientists have gone to great lengths to test that hypothesis.

​Snowflakes form when water droplets attach to a particle of something in the air and freeze. The great variety of shapes depends on the temperature and humidity. They typically form six-sided shapes due to the hexagonal nature of crystals. But not always. There are also three- and twelve-branched snowflakes.

A pastor in the mid-1800s, Israel Perkins Warren, developed one of the earliest classifications of snowflakes, identifying almost 100 variations (pictured at left).

In 1885, Wilson Alwyn Bentley photographed thousands of snowflakes with a microscope, searching in vain for identical flakes.

Currently, the International Classification for Seasonal Snow on the Ground includes at least 80 separate shapes. Even within these shapes, scientists have not found any two in the wild that were exactly the same (although recently, scientists have grown identical snowflakes in lab conditions).

Have a Merry Christmas!

What's Rick Reading Now?

I just finished When Christmas Comes, by Andrew Klavan. Don't let the title fool you; this isn't a feel-good Hallmark-movie-type novel (also not sci-fi; I like to change it up now and then). It's a murder mystery featuring a solver who is a former Special Ops guy turned English professor, whose key to whodunit is putting himself in the murderer's thought pattern. I enjoyed it!

Promotions (free stuff and more!)

For those of you with Kindle Unlimited:

Here's a new book from Richard Rimmington that introduces his Infinite Void series, a space opera about a small band of survivors fighting to prevent the total destruction of humanity. It's free!

Happy Reading!

Rick A. Allen

The Star Riders series:

P.S. To ensure you're always getting correspondence from me (including the occasional free ebook!), please whitelist my email address: rickaallensf@gmail.com​
To do this, simply add this email address as a contact to your address book.
Or click here for whitelisting instructions based on your email provider.

Copyright 2025 by Rick A. Allen, all rights reserved

613 Columbia Court, Colorado Springs, CO 80904

You received this email because you signed up for it. If you don't want to receive my emails, click here: Unsubscribe or to change the frequency of emails, click here: Preferences​

Rick A. Allen

Science Fiction Author

A little about me: I'm an older guy who grew up reading great science fiction by such masters as Isaac Asimov, Larry Niven, Arthur C. Clarke, Robert Heinlein, Clifford Simak, and Robert Heinlein. My favorite current authors are Neal Stephenson and Alastair Reynolds. I started writing a few years ago to try to create a book (and now series) that I think my younger self would have loved to read. Hopefully you will, too! And if you have any comments, I promise to always read your emails to me, and provide a response. I love hearing from my readers!

Read more from Rick A. Allen

View in browser A Great Month for Space Travel Dear Reader, Two great space-related things happened since my last newsletter, and I debated which one to write about, so I decided to write about both. First up: the amazing return to the Moon by the crew of Artemis II, flying the Orion spacecraft to the Moon and using it for a slingshot trajectory to return to Earth. I'm sure you've read all about the historic firsts (and seconds), so I won't bother repeating that. Click here for more Artemis...

7 days ago • 3 min read

View in browser A Horological Challenge Dear Reader, Horology is the study of the measurement of time (not quite what they meant in Pirates of the Caribbean in this gag). I'm interested in ancient methods of measuring time, as I need to come up with an organic timer for my current book (more on that later). We're pretty familiar with sundials and sand in hourglasses, but did you know that in ancient times people used bowls of water, one leaking out into another, to measure time passing? The...

about 1 month ago • 2 min read

View in browser How Far is Far? Dear Reader, We're accustomed in science fiction to throwing around the term "light-year," but do we really have a good feel for just how far that is? I was reminded of this fact recently when I read an article saying that Voyager 1, after nearly 50 years, is almost 1 light-day from home (it will pass that point in November). At that pace, a light-year would take just under 18,000 years. A light-year is 16 billion miles, but how far is that? Our minds don't...

2 months ago • 2 min read