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 ... at the forefront of new trends and technical developments, producing pressed glass, and in the 1880s setting up a new glass-cutting workshop ... Swedish manufacturers with a range of fine art glass and tableware by distinguished designers such as Vicke Lindstrand, artistic director from 1950-1973 ...
... 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 ... of extremely detailed models of flowers made of painted glass ... The Blaschka Glass Flowers are still an inspiration to glassblowers today ...
... 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 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 ... to high temperatures, then cooled rapidly, glass is produced ... This type of glass is known as soda lime glass ...
Famous quotes containing the word glass:
“You doubt we read the stars on high,
Nathless we read your fortunes true;
The stars may hide in the upper sky,
But without glass we fathom you.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“the loose fragrant cavendish
and the shag,
And the bright Virginia
loose under the bright glass cases,”
—Ezra Pound (1885–1972)
“More Safe, and much more modest ‘tis, to say
God wou’d not leave Mankind without a way:
And that the Scriptures, though not every where
Free from Corruption, or intire, or clear,
Are uncorrupt, sufficient, clear, intire,
In all things which our needfull Faith require.
If others in the same Glass better see
‘Tis for Themselves they look, but not for me:
For MY Salvation must its Doom receive
Not from what OTHERS, but what I believe.”
—John Dryden (1631–1700)