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The Pilkington Museum in St. Helens (near Liverpool) had floor-to-ceiling curtains made of woven glass. It was heavy stuff, and the room was very tall; it must
by denton-scratch 3y ago
The Pilkington Museum in St. Helens (near Liverpool) had floor-to-ceiling curtains made of woven glass. It was heavy stuff, and the room was very tall; it must have taken some serious machinery to get them hung.
Pilkingtons is the company that developed and patented float glass, the replacement for plate glass. I think they were acquired by Corning.
- rjsw 3y agoPilkington was acquired by NSG [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nippon_Sheet_Glass https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nippon_Sheet_Glass
- RGBCube 3y agoWouldn't the curtains break if you punched or flexed them a bit?
- denton-scratch 3y agoGlass is a fluid; glass fibres are bendy. It's not crystalline. It can flow like treacle. Glass fibre doesn't shatter, if you spin it thin enough. [Edit] I think it's referred to technically as a "supercooled fluid", i.e. it was cooled too quickly for the formation of crystals to be possible.
- RGBCube 3y agoGlass isn't a fluid, it's a solid. But it isn't crystalline either as you said. Found a video that explains it well: https://youtu.be/c6wuh0NRG1s https://youtu.be/c6wuh0NRG1s
- denton-scratch 3y agoHmmm. Wikipedia agrees with you that it's a solid. But the explanation of why it's not a fluid is handwavey; their strongest claim seems to be that experiments show that it doesn't flow on any reasonable timescale. But presumably that's at standard temperature and pressure; the article doesn't mention the conditions. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass#Formation_from_a_supercooled_liquid https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass#Formation_from_a_superco... Like, glass is definitely liquid if you get it hot enough. But it doesn't have a melting point; there's no discernible transition from hot glass to cold glass.
- RGBCube 3y agoYes, it doesn't have a melting point because the molecules slowly fall apart as glass gets heated; the hotter it gets, the liquider it gets (up to a specific level). Glass at room temprature has enough bonds to stay solid, though.