For thousands of years, humans have been producing and using glass splashbacks and nature has made it become advanced much longer. Speed forward to the 21st century. Humans still make, use, and benefit from the mirror every day. Glass is an integral part of our everyday lives, from the glass we drink glass we peer out of, and all in between. But how much do we know about glass, really?
Here are 8 fascinating facts about glass that will improve your awareness of one of the things you use every day.
1. Glass is Composed of Sand
Sand is combined with lime and soda ash for glass processing and heated at exceptionally high temperatures. The effect is glass until the liquid mixture cools back down.
2. Using minerals to glass Modifies the colour
It will result in a different coloured glass mixing other minerals with the sand, lime, and soda ash. The addition of nickel oxide to the blend, for example, creates violet glass.
3. Lightening will shape glass
Owing to the high temperatures, as sand is hit by lightning, the glass may spontaneously form.
4. When glass fractures, at 3000 mph, the cracks move
That’s 5 times higher than the standard 575mph aeroplane!
5. In the 17th century, glass windows were invented,
People made windows out of flattened animal horns before that.
6. Glass isn’t a healthy thing,
Glass is not known as a solid… or a liquid or gas, considering what you might believe. The glass becomes an “amorphous solid” when cooled, causing molecules within the glass to begin to travel about.
7. The Portland Vase is one of the world’s most valuable pieces of glasswork.
Experts say that the Portland Vase was produced somewhere between AD 5 and AD 25 in Rome. At present, The Vase is in the British Museum, where it has been for more than 200 years.
