Glass: The material of human shape, but also the material of human shape

Glass is probably the most overlooked material in history. It is essential to our lives, even more important than plastic. To me, a world without glass is even harder to imagine than a terraforming Mars (which most scientists agree is practically impossible). Without this miracle all around us, you wouldn't be able to use a touch-screen phone, turn on a glass light, see from a window, wear glasses, or enjoy a drink from a glass bottle on your bedside table. You won't be able to receive email, phone calls or access the Internet.

In an article in the Atlantic, glass was called "humanity's most important material." "In order to connect you and me," writes Douglas Main, "these words are encoded into optical signals that travel at 300, 000 kilometers per second through fiber-optic cables," across mountains, underwater, across cities and countries, and across the globe. The glass inside these cables is thinner than a human hair and "30 times more transparent than the purest water." Glass allows us to see and be seen, to hear and be heard, to light up our rooms, our lives and our thoughts.

From a thermodynamic point of view, glass has a tendency to transform into a solid.

But glass is an interesting material, in part because the word itself is a general term, referring not to a substance with a specific chemical ratio, but to a substance with specific structural characteristics that can be made from "endless formulations." However, when we talk about "glass," we understand it as something very specific: it is a material that is hard and brittle, but with enough heat it can become viscous and fluid. Sometimes glass is mistakenly thought of as a liquid because it will creep (albeit very slowly) even in its cooled state. Glass is not like a solid like a rock because its molecules are not as well organized as any crystal. Diamonds have a very regular crystal structure, as do ice and crystallized honey, but glass does not. Although glass is more solid and reliable than ice, at the molecular level, the arrangement of glass molecules is much less ordered.

In materials science, glass is often thought of as an "amorphous solid." John C. Mauro says it is neither a liquid nor a solid.

Mauro, a former inventor, is now a professor of engineering and materials science at Pennsylvania State University. He has been fascinated by glass since he visited the Corning Museum of Glass in New York at the age of 6. He recalled being "fascinated" by the colors and shapes. Today, he knows more about the function of glass than almost anyone, but he remains in awe of the substance. "Glass is a unique thing," he said. "It breaks the mold."

Beware: This seemingly mundane and inert material we call glass is actually a secret. At the molecular level, glass is more like a liquid, but from a thermodynamic point of view, glass has a tendency to transform into a solid.

From a thermodynamic point of view, Professor Mauro explained, glass has a tendency to become solid. At the molecular level, glass behaves more like a viscous fluid than a solid, but we think of it as a solid because glass molecules move so slowly. "Philosophically, the glass we're looking at is interesting," Mauro said. "When we look at other substances, we learn about glass." Yet, right under our noses, there is a scientific marvel - a substance that behaves in a fascinating and unique way, one that defies easy classification. It makes up our lenses, microscopes, telescopes, screens and eyeglasses. Glass allows us to see the world more clearly, yet we rarely really pay attention to it.

It is this hidden microscopic behavior of glass that makes glass such a curious vessel of beauty, which runs counter to everything we were taught as children about the state of matter. What we usually come into contact with is that matter has three states: solid, liquid, and gas. This is not unusual in any fanciful imagination. Still, glass is special.

Glass is primarily a man-made substance.

While some natural glass does exist in nature, such as black stone and talc, the vast majority of glass is fired by humans at high temperatures. As far as we know, the origin of glass dates back to the Bronze Age of Mesopotamia. About 4,000 years ago, humans began melting silica (sand or crushed stone) and mixing it with small amounts of limestone and soda ash. According to Pliny, the invention of glass was a happy accident: the Roman historian suggested that glass was accidentally acquired by Phoenician sailors in the course of a beach picnic, but since there were no flames at the time capable of reaching temperatures high enough to melt sand, this view is questionable. Contemporary historians believe that glass may have been discovered in the process of making ceramics or working metals. These two processes require higher firing temperatures and longer firing times than baking bread or roasted leg of lamb.

Of all the players in the material world, glass is a magic hand.

The oldest known pieces of glass are similar in use and processing to gemstones, often cold rather than hot, and cut rather than melted. Artisans cut and polish glass and set it in jewelry. At some point, our distant ancestors discovered how to cast glass in molds to produce utensils. Before the art of glass blowing was popularized, craftsmen were able to make glass tiles, small mirrors, and many different types of vessels that could be used to store wine, perfumes, medicines, and other valuable substances.

Around the first year of the AD, due to the promotion of the Romans and their strict production process, glass achieved great success. Glassblowing (a technique brought to Rome from Syria) enabled artisans (often slaves) to make glass cups and bowls much faster than before. Cheap glasses began to appear on the market. Soon, the popularity of glass among ordinary Romans rivaled that of ceramics. Artists began experimenting with richer forms of art with glass, creating Rose Janus face vases and wine bottles decorated with scenes of nativity. Builders began to use glass for Windows, but because the glass was cloudy and heavy, the purpose was not so much for lighting as for safety and insulation. We find traces of glass Windows throughout Rome and surrounding cities, including luxurious tiles and well-preserved bathhouses in Pompeii.

The origin of another type of glass, the lens, is difficult to trace, because lenses appeared some time before the first year of the AD. In the Islamic world during the 10th century, optics emerged as an important field of study, and mathematicians and scientists made great strides in understanding and regulating light. During the Renaissance, philosophers, scientists, and thinkers used lenses to see the physical world - the stars above us (the telescope was invented in 1608) and the earth below us (after the microscope was made in 1625). Glass has long been seen as a material capable of providing light in a literal sense, but it's worth remembering that glass also laid the foundation for much of our enlightenment.

The age of Enlightenment, the slide show was born. Slideshows can be a form of dramatic entertainment that some find terrifying, but others find hopeful - depending on how people choose to watch it.

Glass can broaden our horizons, but not necessarily deepen our understanding.

It's gonna be a crazy, weird party. During this time, guests will see moving images of spirits, demons and other terrifying figures projected onto walls, smoke or translucent screens. This spiritual light show is achieved through a combination of old and new inventions, including magic lamps, magnifying glasses, pepper ghosts, and other glass tools that can be used to manipulate light and visual effects.

The first big slide took place in a theatre in Paris in the 1790s after the Revolution. After waiting for a few minutes in total darkness with the eerie background music of a glass harmonica, the audience begins to see various shapes appear in the sky, which appear to be light and shadow patterns floating and gliding through the air. These "ghosts" are pale and lifelike, and can talk, shout, and cry. One of the "ghosts" is a bleeding nun, first coming closer and then gradually moving away. Later slides involve the ghosts of recently deceased public figures, who are said to have been summoned by the power of science. Because that's how these shows are marketed: it's an intersection between science and religion, faith and enlightenment. They're scary, but they're also hilarious.

We beg to be fooled and to be enlightened. Humans love a spectacle. Of all the players in the material world, I think glass is the ultimate magician. Although glass can brighten a room and a life, it can also distort reality and mask the truth. Just as photography can serve as a record of real events while also obscurating the most basic facts, glass can broaden our horizons but not necessarily improve our understanding.

In contemporary life, most of us rely on glass more than we think: glass is not only used in our windshields and Windows, but also in the optical cables beneath our feet, which are of great significance. "Now we look at each other through a glass screen," Mauro said in an interview. It made me acutely aware of the fragility of our connection. We spoke via Zoom, a remote online video conferencing software. Mauro continued: "Without glass, we would not have tablets, mobile phones, a range of information terminals. All of this is transmitted by light signals using ultra-fine glass wires that we call fiber optics." Without glass, he says, we wouldn't be able to appreciate modern architecture, artificial light, natural light, cars, and most importantly, such a wealth of information.

Mauro emphasized the benefits of glass. It allows us to store vaccines, examine cells and stare at the stars. But glass, like all technology, is "neutral" at its core, he argues. "When I think of fiber optics, I think of all the good it's done for a wide range of applications for communications, but it's also done a lot of harm," he said. People were able to use social media to "spread lies and hate".

We use glass to tell our personal truths, but we can also use it to create false narratives. I wouldn't have been able to vaccinate without glass bottles, but we wouldn't have seen the rapid spread of anti-vaccine conspiracy theories without glass screens in our pockets. Without glass tubes, German glassblower Heinrich Geisler would not have been able to observe cathode rays, Ernest Rutherford would not have been able to discover the energy contained in atomic nuclei, and we would not have nuclear reactors or atomic bombs. We would not have known that when the atomic bomb exploded, it had the power to turn sand into glass, forming star-shaped shards that littered the blast site and remained undiscovered until decades later. Maybe our beliefs won't be so uncertain, so unstable.

While I agree with most of what Mauro says, I'm not sure if glass is really neutral, or if any technology can be said to be. I think to call glass a neutral technology is just a generalization, just like we call glass a solid. And judging whether the glass technology is neutral is far more ambiguous than determining whether the glass is solid. Technology is not inert. It's not a stone; It's a language. Just like a language, we must accept its multiple uses. We can pray; We can lie. Sometimes, we do both at the same time.

But this is the history of mankind. The creation and promotion of glass is a chain of events, from one thing to another, and sometimes these chain reactions end in disaster, sometimes in beauty. When you look at it from an Angle, the glass appears beautiful, reflecting a rainbow of light that has been flowing brightly for eons of time. When you look at it from another Angle, it's hellfire.