2007-05-20 16:04:46 · 11 answers · asked by Anonymous in Science & Mathematics ➔ Earth Sciences & Geology
Glass is actually a liquid! By the defintion of liquid, glass molecules are moving freely in a non-lattice form, without crystals. However glass is so viscous that at normal temperatures it takes decades to flow! Heated, it flows and acts like the liquid it truly is, without actually melting (like a soild would do).
2007-05-20 16:13:19 · answer #1 · answered by Don E Knows 6 · 1⤊ 3⤋
Glass is an amorphous solid.
http://dwb.unl.edu/Teacher/NSF/C01/C01Links/www.ualberta.ca/~bderksen/florin.html will explain why and back it up with peer reviewed reports and includes excerpts to ASTM Standard D4359-90: "Standard Test Method for Determining Whether a Material Is a Liquid or a Solid" so you can test it yourself.
As for those who consider glass a liquid that just flows really slowly but observably in a number of decades, one would wonder why Glass Mountain in Yellowstone Park (a huge deposit of the naturally occurring glass, obsidian) is not well on it's way to being Glass Plains by now. That could be asked of any of the other massive deposits of obsidian, as well as why manufactured glass beads and other items about 4500 years old haven't become mere puddles by now.
2007-05-20 16:58:46 · answer #2 · answered by Now and Then Comes a Thought 6 · 2⤊ 0⤋
One of the reasons glass was considered a liquid was very old, heavy windows with thick glass were noticibly thicker on the bottom than the top, which is evidence for very slow flow. This has recently come under fire though.
Glass is a solid.
2007-05-20 17:13:47 · answer #3 · answered by naturalplastics 4 · 2⤊ 0⤋
Glass is a solid, all the stuff about medieval windows being thicker at the base because it slowly flows is urban legend I'm afraid. Medieval glaziers were savvy people and put the thicker glass at the bottom as it makes for a more stable window that way. There's oodles of thermodynamic data to prove glass doesn't flow at room temperature - even over timescales of centuries.
2007-05-21 07:51:11 · answer #4 · answered by black sheep 2 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Glass is a liquid. It just has such a high viscosity that its flow is almost immeasurable. I was reading some article the other day about windows that were put in churches or some other medieval building that were thicker at the bottom than at the top. Supporting evidence, so yes glass is a liquid.
2007-05-20 16:41:44 · answer #5 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 2⤋
Scientifically speaking, glass is a liquid and the fact is well known. It is because of its very high density it does not flow or take the shape of the container where it is kept. But if you go to the molecular level, it has all the characters that satisfy the properties of a liquid.
2007-05-20 18:04:36 · answer #6 · answered by saudipta c 5 · 0⤊ 2⤋
Glass is a liquid when it is hot but becomes a solid when cooled.
2007-05-20 16:13:52 · answer #7 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 1⤋
Glass is a very viscuous liquid. If you have ever seen a cross section of a window after several decades, you would see that the glass has thinned at the top and thickened at the bottom.
2007-05-20 18:21:12 · answer #8 · answered by John E 3 · 0⤊ 2⤋
Glass is a solid. However, it is not a crystalline solid, it has an amorphous internal structure.
2007-05-20 16:09:11 · answer #9 · answered by Vincent G 7 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Solid unless heated beyon its melting point.
2007-05-20 16:13:12 · answer #10 · answered by Kevin k 7 · 2⤊ 0⤋