Probably would cost Corning even more than ordinary glass that they are prospering well enough from now. At the same time the old European factories can make s

Probably would cost Corning even more than ordinary glass that they are prospering well enough from now. At the same time the old European factories can make specialty glasses cheap enough for schools and pubs. What if some person like Einstein invented glass to begin with, it would not take that much insight to conclude that the "weak point" was how easily it can be broken. If they really started working on that problem from the very beginning you would expect more progress the more centuries that it was continued. OTOH what if inventing glass was not the result of very much of an intellectual exercise, anybody can still see the disadvantages when it come to breakage. But they might not start to do anything about it until centuries later. Who knows? What if just barely making glass was (almost) like a lost art where it took a few centuries for someone like Einstein to come along and take an interest in a way that could add more scientific process, even if still illiterate. Or maybe even more likely, an intermittent series of lesser Einsteins make their contributions to a geographical technical center of excellence which did originally arise from a gifted or fortunate individual at the beginning. Maintaining the status quo (as an art center producing recognized "masterpieces") over generations until the next amazing experimentalist gains a position influential enough to make a contribution so worthwhile it lasts more centuries into the future. Pretty amazing when you think about it, they didn't even have half the chemical elements there are today ;)