Glass
hideGlass generally refers to hard, brittle, transparent material, such as those used for windows, many bottles, or eyewear. Examples of such solid materials include, but are not limited to, soda-lime glass, borosilicate glass, acrylic glass, sugar glass, isinglass (Muscovy-glass), or aluminium oxynitride. In the technical sense, glass is an inorganic product of fusion which has been cooled through the glass transition to a rigid condition without crystallizing. Many glasses contain silica as their main component and glass former.
In the scientific sense the term glass is often extended to all amorphous solids (and melts that easily form amorphous solids), including plastics, resins, or other silica-free amorphous solids. In addition, besides traditional melting techniques, any other means of preparation are considered, such as ion implantation, and the sol-gel method. However, glass science and physics commonly includes only inorganic amorphous solids, while plastics and similar organics are covered by polymer science, biology and further scientific disciplines.
Glass plays an essential role in science and industry. The optical and physical properties of glass make it suitable for applications such as flat glass, container glass, optics and optoelectronics material, laboratory equipment, thermal insulator (glass wool), reinforcement fiber (glass-reinforced plastic, glass fiber reinforced concrete), and art.
The term glass developed in the late Roman Empire. It was in the Roman glassmaking center at Trier, Germany, that the late-Latin term glesum originated, probably from a Germanic word for a transparent, lustrous substance.
For more information about Glass, read the full article at
Wikipedia.
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News tagged with glass
Right/left handedness of snails changed in the lab
Nov 30, 2009 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- Like most animals, snails have either left- or right-handed asymmetry (chirality), both internally and externally, and the handedness is hereditary. A new study has for the first time found ...
Rare earth metal enhances phosphate glass
Dec 15, 2009 |
4.5 / 5 (2) |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- Adding cerium oxide to phosphate glass rather than the commonly used silicate glass may make glasses that block ultraviolet light and have increased radiation damage resistance while remaining colorless, ...
Sponges against cancer
Nov 20, 2009 |
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Deep under the sea, there's a battle of life and death going on, with no holds barred. Sponges and other marine animals which cannot move around might seem to be defenceless against predators. Yet nothing is further from ...
Novel connector uses magnets for leak-free microfluidic devices
Nov 18, 2009 |
4.8 / 5 (4) |
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Like other users of microfluidic systems, National Institute of Standards and Technology researcher Javier Atencia was faced with an annoying engineering problem: how to simply, reliably and most of all, tightly, ...
Nature's fine designs: Scientists find modern lessons in ancient creations
Dec 04, 2009 |
4.5 / 5 (4) |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- Nature and its bottom-up processes for creating robust and responsive materials are inspiring new generations of synthetic materials and creative design.
MO-SCI to manufacture SRNL's unique porous walled hollow glass microspheres
Nanotechnology / Nanomaterials
22 hours ago |
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A licensing agreement between the U.S. Department of Energy's Savannah River National Laboratory (SRNL) and specialty glass provider Mo-Sci Corporation will make SRNL's unique Porous Walled Hollow Glass Microspheres available ...
Parents: Be mindful of hazardous holiday ornaments
Dec 14, 2009 |
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A new study from Children's Hospital Boston's Division of Emergency Medicine has found that holiday decorations, particularly glass ornaments, are one more safety hazard parents must consider during the season. ...
