How Glass Changed the World—Over and Over Again

You in all probability have n’t given much thought to the fact that there ’s a slab of chemically strengthened methamphetamine in your sack , avoid blow from keys or variety or any other hard objects might slide or scrape or scratch against it , or that the C of million of interchangeable cut of glass lining pockets around the world was n’t potential not so long ago .

Glass ’s first huge bump hit in the mid-18th century . It went from being cute and expensive — the stuff of jewellery and fancy workshop windows — to being an indispensable material of industriousness and architecture . An epical , epic introduction was in lodge .

When Joseph Paxton ’s Crystal Palace was built in London in 1850 for the first very World ’s Fair , it was the most massive and arguably most striking construction on solid ground . Constructed from nearly a million square feet of glass formed from 293,655 paneling , the design used a third of what Britain typically manufacture in a class . It was one hell of an impressive greenhouse .

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Thanks to some well - time tax cuts , which made glass cheaper , and the development of mainsheet looking glass , which made glass manufacture faster , the material was finally able to sate the hole that needed it — and we ’re not just talk about window .

Light . Suddenly , everyone had access to it . And those photons , when allowed in unaltered , were able-bodied to do over-the-top things . The same cost and manufacturing spring that that give Paxton his Methedrine palace also open up the bricked up window of people who previously could n’t reach the see - through stuff . Trapped light also made elbow room for something else — for the first clock time in chronicle , people were able-bodied to grow plants that did n’t follow from their backyard . seed schlepped from China , India and North America could now be rise in England with the right glass cover .

But it also became , um , readable that glass was about more than just its transparency . A great part of why glass is so limited is that its atomic complex body part in its upstanding kind masquerades as a liquid . It resists that repeated structure of pellucid material , and rather , as liquid glass turns solid , the atoms are freeze into a random arrangement .

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It ’s also fabulously strong . When crank is free from dross or scratch line , it is much unassailable than most metals — like so unassailable that it can take 2 to 5 million pounds of pressure per square inch without breaking variety . certain , that kind of strong suit is only theoretical , but commercial-grade glass products today still boast an impressive 2,000 and 25,000 pounds per square in before shattering .

When mould plastic products like auto body parts need a strength booster , they turn to glass , but not the sort that comes in shroud . fibreglass starts as a liquid , just like other manufactured glass products that are awaiting their last embodiment , but instead of being spread out on plates or blown , the liquid is extruded through hundreds of petite schnoz . The thin streams of looking glass are gathered into strands , which can be woven into yarns or made into wool . Because fiberglass is also a top - rate thermal and legal regular , it ’s incorporate into building , appliances , and plumbery .

And despite the fact that it ’s somewhat incredible on its own , we ’ve figured out how to persuade glass to work even hard for us . Want it to do a good job of standing up to sudden swings in temperature ? Dope silica glass - itself very insubordinate to thermic shock-–with titanium oxide and you ’ve got a material set for a deep space telescope . Need something ultra clear ? layer glass with monomolecular coatings will get rid of any underlying thoughtfulness , allowing spyglass to be totally transparent . ( specs , microscopes , camera lense - basically anything where it ’s passing of import to limit deformation — benefit from the celluloid ) . Afraid it might break ? Etching it with acid , cool off it with melody K or immersing it in a bathroom of liquefied alkali saltiness will do the trick .

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