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":
... Early production consisted of window glass, chandeliers and drinking glasses ... was at the forefront of new trends and technical developments, producing pressed glass, and in the 1880s setting up a new glass-cutting workshop ... on to maintain its reputation as one of the leading Swedish manufacturers with a range of fine art glass and tableware by distinguished designers such as Vicke Lindstrand ...
... Apart from historical collections in general museums, modern works of art in glass can be seen in a variety of museums, including the Chrysler Museum, the Museum ... models of flowers made of painted glass ... The Blaschka Glass Flowers are still an inspiration to glassblowers today ...
... 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 ...
... 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 ...
... 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 ...
Famous quotes containing the word glass:
“A skyscraper is a boast in glass and steel.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)
“The glass of fashion and the mould of form,
Th’observed of all observers.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“The glass has been falling all the afternoon”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)