is glass always in liquid form?

Question

the hotter glass gets the softer it gets so how come it doesnt eventually fall out,its something to do with the molecules slowing down that it stays in shape

Answer 1

All solids will eventually melt at certain temperature. I guess this is the law of nature.

Answer 2

We see glass as a solid, but in fact it is a very slow moving liquid, if you were to make a glass pane and then leave it for years and yeasr on end (so long that you wouldn't be able to see the results) you would find that, if left in a up right postion like a window, then the bottom of the glass pane will be thicker and the top thinner than how it was when you first started. This can bee seen on the wondow of old manor houses, if the window has not been replaced.

Answer 3

No! It starts off as sand and when you heat it ,it turns into glass ! The glass has to be heated to a very high temp. to become a liquid again! So it's not going to fall out! Yes it is because the molecules slow down that it stays in shape! Heat it and the molecules speed up!

Answer 4

There is a bit of urban legend in this. Make no mistake glass is solid at room temperature and solid up to quite high temperatures. Glass manufactures make sheets of glass by extruding it at very high temperatures and cooling it on molten tin. Glass blowers use furnaces and oxy-acetaline to soften it enough to make it workable. You see where I am going here?
Now why, in old buildings is the glass thicker at the bottom than at the top?
Before the float technique was invented, window glass was cast or moulded. Notice that windows up to recent times were a lot smaller than now it wasn't just a fashion. Due to this process the panes were often thicker one end to the other. Glaisers would fit these panes thick edge to the bottom as this was the easiest way to do it. The glass hasn't run because it is solid.

Answer 5

The short answer is Yes. The glass in the bottles on your shelf is a liquid, although of such high viscosity that you don't see flow. Over centuries, the flow can be seen. The metals in the frit keep the silica molecules from forming a crystalline structure.

Answer 6

Although glass has properties of a supercooled liquid, it is generally classed as solid at room temperature.There is also the problem that a supercooled liquid is still a liquid - moves and behaves like a liquid, not a solid - but is below the freezing point of the material and will crystalize almost instantly if a crystal is added as a core.

Answer 7

Common glasses are amorphous solids. Glass is stiff when cold and looser with increasing temperature. It is possible to heat glass and have some of its components finally crystallize. Sloppy glassblowing will devitrify Pyrex. Zerodur is a crystalline phase grown within a glass matrix. Pyroceram is an extensively crystallized glass.

Silica as alpha-quartz is a self-similar crystalline solid. Warm it past 573 and it changes crystallographc space group. When it cools it is a severely disordered crystalline solid. Molten silica is amorphous. As it cools its viscosity rapidly increases. Formula units cannot order themselves in space before being rigidly locked in place. Fused silica is a glass. Crystalline quartz is grown from hydrothermal solution (well below 573 C).

Answer 8

If you heat it enough, I assume glass would boil, although I don't know if it would actually become "gaseous" glass (and therefore not in a liquid state) or if it would chemically break down into non-glass.
Within normal temperatures, glass is an "amorphous solid", which really means a extraordinarily viscous liquid.
If you get the chance to visit a 200-year old house, check the windows; you'll see that the glass panes have flowed down slightly.

Answer 9

Ice is a solid which melts at 32 degrees F, at which point it becomes water, a liquid.
Conversely, water freezes at 32 degrees and becomes ice, a solid.
Glass has neither a melting point, nor a freezing point.
It gets softer as it gets hotter.
It is never really a liquid and never really solid (unless you add impurities for it to crystallize around).

Answer 10

I think it is more accurate to call it "fluid" - very slightly. Glass does flow very slowly, look at old glass panes in churches and you will see a thickening at the bottom of the pane