{"id":12105,"date":"2023-11-03T11:44:51","date_gmt":"2023-11-03T11:44:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lonecandle.com\/?p=12105"},"modified":"2023-11-03T11:44:51","modified_gmt":"2023-11-03T11:44:51","slug":"the-surprising-scientific-weirdness-of-glass","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/?p=12105","title":{"rendered":"The surprising scientific weirdness of glass"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\n\n“There\u2019s a myth<\/a> about glass you might have read about in high school: If you go to a church that\u2019s hundreds of years old and look at the glass windows, you\u2019ll find that the panes are thicker at the bottom of the frame than at the top. That\u2019s because, according to lore, glass is actually a liquid, just one that flows very slowly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is a myth for a lot of reasons. The simplest is that the thickness of glass at the base of the windows can be explained<\/a> simply<\/a> by how glass panes were manufactured in the olden days. Back then, flat windows were made by spinning a glass form into<\/a> a flat disc, which left the finished product with uneven thickness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But also as a scientific explanation, the myth does not do glass justice. Glass is so much weirder than a very slow-moving liquid. In fact, even though glass is one of the most common, most useful materials in the world \u2014 lining our windows, covering our phones, delicately holding our stems of roses \u2014 scientists still have deep questions about what it fundamentally is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt defies the very simple categories we have of liquid, solid, and gas,\u201d says Camille Scalliet<\/a>, a theoretical physicist at the University of Cambridge. She\u2019s not the only scientist flummoxed by glass. All over<\/a> the world<\/a>, physicists, chemists, and other specialists are trying to unlock its secrets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s true that glass does have some liquid-like properties. But remarkably, rather than flow, glass doesn\u2019t move very much at all. In 2017, scientists analyzed the church glass myth in a paper, determining that<\/a>, over a billion years, church windowpanes would flow a single nanometer. (That is one-billionth<\/a> of a meter; it\u2019s infinitesimally tiny. A piece of paper is around<\/a> 100,000 nanometers thick.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And this finding gets us closer to the deepest mystery of glass. The question scientists grapple with isn\u2019t \u201cwhy does it flow.\u201d Instead, \u201cwe don\u2019t really know why it\u2019s solid,\u201d Scalliet says.”  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Solids and liquids are both made up of atoms and molecules. Temperature changes how these components are arranged. Cooler temperatures solidify molecules; warmer temperatures make them juicy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The important differences are seen on the microscopic scale of molecules. In liquids, the molecules are very disordered; they move around each other and flow. \u201cIf you could zoom in and see individual molecules, they would be packed randomly and they would be moving around very fast,\u201d Scalliet says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I think of a liquid like a crowd of people dancing at a club. They\u2019re energetic, packed in, vibing. They can move around each other, bump and grind, dancing to the music. If you took a snapshot of the dancers, it would look like a chaotic, jumbled mess. That\u2019s a liquid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Solids are much more tame. As we typically think of them, they are made up of crystals, which are structured, orderly patterns of molecules. When the temperature cools down, the atoms and molecules line up in a regular geometric pattern. In the dance club metaphor, instead of undulating past each other, these ravers stop dancing and sit down in concert seats. They can still squirm a bit in those seats (as long as the thermostat in the theater isn\u2019t set to absolute zero), but they\u2019re mostly locked in place.” <\/p>\n\n\n\n

…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“The simplest explanation for how glass forms is that it\u2019s a liquid that cools too quickly for those crystals to form. So the molecules get locked in place in a chaotic liquid-like arrangement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Imagine you\u2019re in the crowded dance space, and you decide you need to use the bathroom. But when you try to get there, a lot of the dancers decide to stop moving. When that happens, it becomes harder and harder for you to navigate across the dance floor. \u201cIf you\u2019re with your partner and you want to just trade places, you can\u2019t do it because you\u2019re so jammed, you need to get other people to move,\u201d David Weitz<\/a>, a Harvard physicist, says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And when you<\/em> can\u2019t move, it makes it harder for other people to move around you. So gradually, and then very suddenly, the whole dance floor seizes up. You\u2019re locked in place, and not in an orderly geometric pattern. It\u2019s a mess. It\u2019s glass. And you\u2019re not going to make it to the bathroom in time (again, it might take some billions of years to move just nanometers).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is the basic definition of a glass: a liquid that has been locked in place. Or, in science-speak: an \u201camorphous solid<\/a>.\u201d And it applies to a lot of materials, not just the silica-based glasses that hang in our windows or cover our phones.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Some plastics are considered glasses<\/a>, as are natural materials like amber. And some parts of your cells are considered to be glass-like<\/a>. Even foams like whipped cream can be described as glass-like, Weitz says. Finding out the underlying mechanics that connect all these forms of glass, that\u2019s \u201cthe real challenge to me, the beauty of the whole science.\u201d”<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

…<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

“<\/em>If you take a picture of the molecular structure of a glass and the molecular structure of a liquid, they look the same. So why does one flow and another is locked in place?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere are currently different ways to explain this,<\/a> why the glass is not moving,\u201d Scalliet says. But no theory is universally agreed upon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The various explanations involve some very math-heavy invocations of thermodynamics<\/a>. But in short, scientists are in search of a deeper order to this system that we can\u2019t see just in a snapshot \u2014 something to explain glass\u2019s solidness like you could explain the solidness of table salt by pointing to its crystal structure. The secret is likely in the collective action of the molecules over time, and how they influence one another as the liquid seizes up.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“In practical terms, it matters that scientists don\u2019t have a complete theory of glass. For one, it means they simply don\u2019t understand glass as well as they do crystalline solids.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With a crystalline solid, you can predict many of the properties of the solid just by looking at its simple crystal structure. Just by knowing the arrangement of the molecules in the crystalline solid, \u201cyou can understand, for example, how the solid will absorb heat,\u201d Scalliet says, or \u201cwhere it will break.\u201d But in the case of glass, \u201cyou have basically an infinite number of arrangements. You don\u2019t have this well-known underlying structure.\u201d”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

” it\u2019s hard to predict the properties of glass. We learn how glass breaks by breaking it, how it holds on to heat by heating it. That leaves the manufacturing of new types of glass to be a bit of trial and error. But the lack of a complete theory also leaves scientists with some fundamental \u2014 even existential \u2014 questions about what glass truly is.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“glass will still flow a tiny bit over millions and billions of years. If we lived for that long, and experienced the passage of time more quickly, we might not think glass is very mysterious at all. We might think it was a liquid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It could also be that, also over an immense period, glass will eventually crystallize and become a typical solid. In this light, glass is just liquid \u201cthat\u2019s sliding on its way to being a crystal,\u201d <\/em>Mark Ediger<\/a>, a chemistry professor at the University of Wisconsin Madison, says.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“there\u2019s another exciting possibility here: that instead of crystallization, over very long periods, glass can inch closer to the state of \u201cperfect disorder,\u201d as Ediger describes.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

https:\/\/www.vox.com\/the-highlight\/23850787\/what-is-glass-scientific-mystery<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“There\u2019s a myth about glass you might have read about in high school: If you go to a church that\u2019s hundreds of years old and look at the glass windows, you\u2019ll find that the panes are thicker at the bottom of the frame than at the top. That\u2019s because, according to lore, glass is actually a liquid, just one that flows very slowly.
\nThis is a myth for a lot of reasons. The simplest is that the thickness of glass at the base of the windows can be explained simply by how glass panes were manufactured in the olden days. Back then, flat windows were made by spinning a glass form into a flat disc, which left the finished product with uneven thickness.<\/p>\n

But also as a scientific explanation, the myth does not do glass justice. Glass is so much weirder than a very slow-moving liquid. In fact, even though glass is one of the most common, most useful materials in the world \u2014 lining our windows, covering our phones, delicately holding our stems of roses \u2014 scientists still have deep questions about what it fundamentally is.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt defies the very simple categories we have of liquid, solid, and gas,\u201d says Camille Scalliet, a theoretical physicist at the University of Cambridge. She\u2019s not the only scientist flummoxed by glass. All over the world, physicists, chemists, and other specialists are trying to unlock its secrets.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s true that glass does have some liquid-like properties. But remarkably, rather than flow, glass doesn\u2019t move very much at all. In 2017, scientists analyzed the church glass myth in a paper, determining that, over a billion years, church windowpanes would flow a single nanometer. (That is one-billionth of a meter; it\u2019s infinitesimally tiny. A piece of paper is around 100,000 nanometers thick.)<\/p>\n

And this finding gets us closer to the deepest mystery of glass. The question scientists grapple with isn\u2019t \u201cwhy does it flow.\u201d Instead, \u201cwe don\u2019t really know why it\u2019s solid,\u201d Scalliet says.” <\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

“Solids and liquids are both made up of atoms and molecules. Temperature changes how these components are arranged. Cooler temperatures solidify molecules; warmer temperatures make them juicy.<\/p>\n

The important differences are seen on the microscopic scale of molecules. In liquids, the molecules are very disordered; they move around each other and flow. \u201cIf you could zoom in and see individual molecules, they would be packed randomly and they would be moving around very fast,\u201d Scalliet says.<\/p>\n

I think of a liquid like a crowd of people dancing at a club. They\u2019re energetic, packed in, vibing. They can move around each other, bump and grind, dancing to the music. If you took a snapshot of the dancers, it would look like a chaotic, jumbled mess. That\u2019s a liquid.<\/p>\n

Solids are much more tame. As we typically think of them, they are made up of crystals, which are structured, orderly patterns of molecules. When the temperature cools down, the atoms and molecules line up in a regular geometric pattern. In the dance club metaphor, instead of undulating past each other, these ravers stop dancing and sit down in concert seats. They can still squirm a bit in those seats (as long as the thermostat in the theater isn\u2019t set to absolute zero), but they\u2019re mostly locked in place.” <\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

“The simplest explanation for how glass forms is that it\u2019s a liquid that cools too quickly for those crystals to form. So the molecules get locked in place in a chaotic liquid-like arrangement.<\/p>\n

Imagine you\u2019re in the crowded dance space, and you decide you need to use the bathroom. But when you try to get there, a lot of the dancers decide to stop moving. When that happens, it becomes harder and harder for you to navigate across the dance floor. \u201cIf you\u2019re with your partner and you want to just trade places, you can\u2019t do it because you\u2019re so jammed, you need to get other people to move,\u201d David Weitz, a Harvard physicist, says.<\/p>\n

And when you can\u2019t move, it makes it harder for other people to move around you. So gradually, and then very suddenly, the whole dance floor seizes up. You\u2019re locked in place, and not in an orderly geometric pattern. It\u2019s a mess. It\u2019s glass. And you\u2019re not going to make it to the bathroom in time (again, it might take some billions of years to move just nanometers).<\/p>\n

This is the basic definition of a glass: a liquid that has been locked in place. Or, in science-speak: an \u201camorphous solid.\u201d And it applies to a lot of materials, not just the silica-based glasses that hang in our windows or cover our phones.”<\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

“Some plastics are considered glasses, as are natural materials like amber. And some parts of your cells are considered to be glass-like. Even foams like whipped cream can be described as glass-like, Weitz says. Finding out the underlying mechanics that connect all these forms of glass, that\u2019s \u201cthe real challenge to me, the beauty of the whole science.\u201d”<\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

“If you take a picture of the molecular structure of a glass and the molecular structure of a liquid, they look the same. So why does one flow and another is locked in place?<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are currently different ways to explain this, why the glass is not moving,\u201d Scalliet says. But no theory is universally agreed upon.<\/p>\n

The various explanations involve some very math-heavy invocations of thermodynamics. But in short, scientists are in search of a deeper order to this system that we can\u2019t see just in a snapshot \u2014 something to explain glass\u2019s solidness like you could explain the solidness of table salt by pointing to its crystal structure. The secret is likely in the collective action of the molecules over time, and how they influence one another as the liquid seizes up.”<\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

“In practical terms, it matters that scientists don\u2019t have a complete theory of glass. For one, it means they simply don\u2019t understand glass as well as they do crystalline solids.<\/p>\n

With a crystalline solid, you can predict many of the properties of the solid just by looking at its simple crystal structure. Just by knowing the arrangement of the molecules in the crystalline solid, \u201cyou can understand, for example, how the solid will absorb heat,\u201d Scalliet says, or \u201cwhere it will break.\u201d But in the case of glass, \u201cyou have basically an infinite number of arrangements. You don\u2019t have this well-known underlying structure.\u201d”<\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

” it\u2019s hard to predict the properties of glass. We learn how glass breaks by breaking it, how it holds on to heat by heating it. That leaves the manufacturing of new types of glass to be a bit of trial and error. But the lack of a complete theory also leaves scientists with some fundamental \u2014 even existential \u2014 questions about what glass truly is.”<\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

“glass will still flow a tiny bit over millions and billions of years. If we lived for that long, and experienced the passage of time more quickly, we might not think glass is very mysterious at all. We might think it was a liquid.<\/p>\n

It could also be that, also over an immense period, glass will eventually crystallize and become a typical solid. In this light, glass is just liquid \u201cthat\u2019s sliding on its way to being a crystal,\u201d Mark Ediger, a chemistry professor at the University of Wisconsin Madison, says.”<\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

“there\u2019s another exciting possibility here: that instead of crystallization, over very long periods, glass can inch closer to the state of \u201cperfect disorder,\u201d as Ediger describes.”<\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.vox.com\/the-highlight\/23850787\/what-is-glass-scientific-mystery<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[1968,811],"class_list":["post-12105","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article-share","tag-glass","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12105","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12105"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12105\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12106,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12105\/revisions\/12106"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12105"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12105"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12105"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}