this post was submitted on 03 Apr 2024
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Science Memes

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submitted 7 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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[–] [email protected] 96 points 7 months ago (1 children)

It's the cooling of silica (really, any material) that makes it a glass, and even then, transparency in the visual wavelength is not automatically certain.

[–] [email protected] 75 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Case in point, obsidian.

[–] [email protected] 61 points 7 months ago

Good example. Obsidian is apparently 70% silica. Iron is apparently what makes it black in color. If it's thin enough, it is translucent.

If you cool pure silica slowly enough, with impurities to cause seeding, you will get tons of crystals, not a single glass, that won't be transparent.

[–] [email protected] 41 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

3090 degrees is above its boiling point (which is 2950 degrees).

So it doesn't become "clear", it literally vaporises.

[–] [email protected] 79 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (2 children)

You are talking Celsius while the meme is likely referring to F (you can tell because Obama)

[–] [email protected] 4 points 7 months ago

When will the US finally use the metric system 😮‍💨

Anti Commercial AI thingyCC BY-NC-SA 4.0

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago

This ambiguity is what I had in mind when I read "let me be clear". Though now I get it.

[–] [email protected] 36 points 7 months ago

Glassblowers: thanks Obama

[–] [email protected] 22 points 7 months ago (5 children)

I wonder how they figured that out

Did molten lava touch sand and then they were like 😳

[–] [email protected] 21 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (5 children)

Maybe tektites? Natural glass formed when ~~lightning~~ meteorites strike~~s~~ sand. I only remember the name because they share it with the jumpy spiders from Zelda

[–] [email protected] 8 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

When lightning strikes sand it creates fulgerites.

Tektites are formed when meteorites strike.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 7 months ago (1 children)

I am sorry for insulting your people

[–] [email protected] 4 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Right. Now don't do it again!

[–] [email protected] 4 points 7 months ago

Hi! You included a link which is really difficult for mobile users to tap. Here is a much longer and more tappable link.

I am not a bot, and this action was performed manually. I recall that there was a bot for this on Reddit. Does an equivalent exist on Lemmy yet?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 7 months ago

Oh look there's a whole Wikipedia page on it

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_glass

Possibly an accidental byproduct of metal working

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago

Ha, nice reference

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago

I thought you were talking about tektites for a second.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago

Jules Verne wrote about this in one of his novels. The mysterious island, iirc.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 7 months ago

It’s like minecraft.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 months ago

If you spent your days cooking with fire, and your nights watching it and warming yourself, you'd definitely start tossing anything you could find into it just to see what would happen. People did this every day and night for eons.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

I think people just experimented a lot. Try enough random things, you're bound to come across cool chemistry every once in a while. If they figured out how to make really hot fire, that opens the path to "let's try making various things really hot to see what happens".

Of course, I know basically nothing about [pre]history or human development so I could be way off

[–] [email protected] 14 points 7 months ago

well this is my favorite post.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 7 months ago (2 children)

first it becomes glowy orange tho

[–] [email protected] 8 points 7 months ago

Oozy orange blob is the Trump phase.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago

More like an orangey white like an incandescent bulb, maybe.

[–] [email protected] -3 points 7 months ago

how about no