<![CDATA[io9: Glass]]> http://cache.io9.com/assets/base/img/thumbs140x140/io9.com.png <![CDATA[io9: Glass]]> http://io9.com/tag/glass http://io9.com/tag/glass <![CDATA[Why can we see through glass but not other solids? Let this awesome video explain]]> It seems like a simple enough question - why are some materials transparent while others are opaque? But, as this video from the University of Nottingham's Sixty Symbols project explains, a lot of the most common explanations you get are fundamentally wrong. Watch a professional scientist recoil in horror at the terribleness of internet science, pretend to be a photon, and throw balls around his office, all in the name of explaining the energy gap that makes objects transparent or opaque. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5765728&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[Awesome discovery of the week: Glass melts when it gets too cold]]> Anyone who's seen enough old Sesame Street episodes or been to enough Renaissance Fairs knows that when glass gets hot enough, it turns to liquid. Applied heat pumps energy into the solid pieces of glass, getting their molecules jiggling. As the heat dissipates, the glass becomes cool and solidifies again. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5756593&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[When cleavage is a bad thing]]> Glass: it's so much more than just the clear stuff in your windowpanes that keeps the cold out.  In fact, we've just learned of a glass that is actually stronger than steel, and just about as tough.  More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5741130&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[Cut the top off a champagne bottle with a knife - and learn physics!]]> A violent method of opening champagne bottles helps explain how pyrex dishes are manufactured to be harder to break than regular glass, and more. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5729223&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[Major Discovery Could Lead to Wonder Woman's Invisible Plane]]> In the 1970s Wonder Woman TV show, the superheroine's invisible plane looked more like a glass plane. Which was, though not true to the comic, just as cool. And in fact a whole generation of TV-watching dorks grew up wanting glass planes as a result. Now those Wonder Woman fans may get their wishes. Researchers have made a major discover about the way glass functions at a molecular level - and as a result, they may be able to make super-hard glass that's as strong as steel. [Science Daily] More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5019794&view=rss&microfeed=true