The surprising scientific weirdness of glass. “Glass is so much weirder than a very slow-moving liquid. […] The simplest explanation for how glass forms is that it’s a liquid that cools too quickly for those crystals to form.”
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Discussion 2 comments
I did research on borosilicate glasses when I was an undergrad. Re: "a liquid that cools too quickly for those crystals to form", we did just that to make glasses that few others had before. We used techniques like splat quenching (pouring the molten substance out of a platinum crucible onto a brass plate and slamming another brass plate down on it, cooling the substance very quickly and making thin pieces of glass) and roller quenching (pouring the molten substance in between two very quickly spinning metal drums; the glass is ejected out of the bottom in ultra-thin flakes). They use other techniques to make the glasses now I think. But it was such a great experience...glass is cool!
Ha! I did research on lithium and sodium borate glasses. They were so reactive that they would literally melt away in minutes, so any measurements had to be done quick. That's how I met you, by the way... at a physics alumni reunion, and that's how I found out about Kottke.org
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