Glass is an amorphous (non-crystalline) solid material. Glasses are typically brittle and optically transparent.
The most familiar type of glass, used for centuries in windows and drinking vessels, is soda-lime glass, composed of about 75% silica (SiO2) plus sodium oxide Na2O from soda ash, lime CaO, and several minor additives. Often, the term glass is used in a restricted sense to refer to this specific use.
In science, however, the term glass is usually defined in a much wider sense, including every solid that possesses a non-crystalline (i.e., amorphous) structure and that exhibits a glass transition when heated towards the liquid state. In this wider sense, glasses can be made of quite different classes of materials: metallic alloys, ionic melts, aqueous solutions, molecular liquids, and polymers. For many applications (bottles, eyewear) polymer glasses (acrylic glass, polycarbonate, polyethylene terephthalate) are a lighter alternative to traditional silica glasses.
Read more about Glass: Silicate Glass, Structure, Glass Versus Supercooled Liquid, Glass Art
Other articles related to "glass":
... The Corning Glass Works of Corning, New York, designed and developed the multilayered panes that made up the new window ... The outer pane was 0.35 in (8.9 mm) thick Vycor glass ... The inner pane was made up of three inner glass panels bonded to make a single inner pane ...
... Frosted glass is produced by the sandblasting or acid etching of clear sheet glass ... It has the effect of rendering the glass translucent by scattering of light during transmission, thus blurring images while still transmitting light ... Decorative patterns may be imposed upon otherwise plain glass by using wax or other resist to retain transparent areas ...
... The manufacture of glass is one of the most important uses of sodium carbonate ... combined with silica and calcium carbonate and heated to high temperatures, then cooled rapidly, glass is produced ... This type of glass is known as soda lime glass ...
... Early production consisted of window glass, chandeliers and drinking glasses ... the forefront of new trends and technical developments, producing pressed glass, and in the 1880s setting up a new glass-cutting workshop ... manufacturers with a range of fine art glass and tableware by distinguished designers such as Vicke Lindstrand, artistic director from 1950-1973 ...
... in general museums, modern works of art in glass can be seen in a variety of museums, including the Chrysler Museum, the Museum of Glass in Tacoma, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Toledo ... detailed models of flowers made of painted glass ... The Blaschka Glass Flowers are still an inspiration to glassblowers today ...
Famous quotes containing the word glass:
“People who, out of an inborn moderation, leave every glass standing only half-emptied refuse to admit that everything in the world has its sediments and dregs.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“It is difficult to read. The page is dark.
Yet he knows what it is that he expects.
The page is blank or a frame without a glass
Or a glass that is empty when he looks.”
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)