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As clear as glass

2007.12.18

Glass is an amazing material, beautiful and inspiring to look at, versatile in its potential applications, and challenging to work with.

Friendship is like a glass ornament, once it is broken it can rarely be put back together exactly the same way.”

Among the many thousands of things that I have never been able to understand, one in particular stands out. That is the question of who was the first person who stood by a pile of sand and said, "You know, I bet if we took some of this and mixed it with a little potash and heated it, we could make a material that would be solid and yet transparent. We could call it glass." Call me simple-minded, but you could stand me on a beach till the end of time and never would it occur to me to try to make it into windows.”
Bill Brys

The windows of my soul are made of one-way glass, don't bother looking into my eyes if there's something you want to know, just ask”
Ani Difranco

The Story of Glass
Some 2000 years ago, a group of Phoenician merchants used blocks of "natron", an alkali, to support their cooking pots over the fire while preparing dinner. When the fire burned out, they discovered a clear residue. This has been credited with being the first human-made glass.
The story has a nice imaginative appeal. However, it would not have been possible for the heat from the fire to fuse natron and sand into a glass-like substance. This would have required a temperature over 1100 degrees centigrade. What likely happened is that the sand in the region was, in fact, powdered obsidian -- natural glass. It would then have been possible for the heat from the fire, assisted by the fluxing action of the natron on the sandy particles, to produce a glass residue.
Glass containers for food, beverages, cosmetics and medicines have been with us a long time. Human-made glass is thought to be the oldest manufactured substance in the world. Archaeologists have found glass bottles and jars dating back to 1500 B.C.
Since then, glassmaking has had a long and fascinating development, right up to its present multitude of uses by artisans, craftspeople and manufacturing firms.

12 Comments

Wonderful set! I have a similar pic of hanging goblets that I find cool, but not as neat as these! Perfect quote: "Friendship is like a glass ornament, once it is broken it can rarely be put back together exactly the same way.”

So true.

MHJphotos · 2007-12-19: 20:55