All About Glass

124. How is Glass Made?

The ultimate effect of fire is the conversion of lime and ashes into glass.

After the finest particles of the bodies being burned have been extracted and rejected, the remaining ones are left as lime or ashes. These are so solid and thick that they cannot be lifted upward by the force of fire.

They usually have irregular and angular shapes. This makes them:

• not adhere to each other mutually
• touch each other only in very tiny points.

However, when a powerful and prolonged fire exerts its force on them, the earth-aether finer particles, along with the air-aether globules, rapidly move around them in all directions.

This gradually:

• wears down their angles
• smoothens their surfaces
• bend some of their surfaces

This makes them form glass by connecting with each other, from flowing and merging with one another on small surfaces.

125. How are glass particles connected?

When two bodies with surfaces of some width encounter each other directly, they cannot approach each other so closely that some space does not intervene.

This space is occupied by the globules of the air-aether.

However, if one is moved over the other obliquely, nothing prevents them from immediately touching each other, at least if the surfaces of both are smooth and flat.

But if they are rough and uneven, they are gradually smoothed and flattened by this very movement.

Therefore:

• the disconnected particles of lime and ashes are represented here by bodies B and C
• the connected particles of glass are represented by bodies G and H.

From this single difference creates all the properties of glass from the intense and prolonged action of fire.

126. Why is glass liquid when glowing and easily takes on any shape?

The force of fire bends and smooths the glass particles. This makes them move easily and become liquid.

When it begins to cool, it can take on any shape.

This is common to all bodies liquefied by fire.

• While they are still liquid, their particles easily adapt to any shape.
• When they later solidify, they retain the same shapes they last assumed.

Glass can also be drawn into very thin threads like hairs.

• This is because when its particles start to solidify, they flow more easily over one another than they can be separated from each other.

127. Why is glass very hard when cold?

When glass has completely cooled, it is very hard and brittle.

• It becomes more brittle the faster it cools.

It becomes hard because its particles are only thick and inflexible.

• These adhere to each other through direct contact and not as interweaving branches.

Softness is from:

• flexible particles
• particles that end in some flexible branches

These connect to each other mutually.

However, the strongest adhesion is from immediate contact.

• These particles touch each other so that neither is in motion to be separated from the other.

This happens to the particles of glass as soon as they are removed from the fire because their thickness, proximity, and uneven shapes prevent them from being preserved in their motion against the surrounding air.

128. Why is glass very brittle?

Glass is very brittle because the surfaces on which its particles touch each other are very small and few.

Many other softer bodies are more difficult to break because their parts are so intertwined that they cannot be separated without breaking and tearing many of their branches.