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Bizarre Properties of Glass Allow Creation of "Metallic Glass"
VindictivePantz writes to mention that scientists have discovered some bizarre properties of glass and are already applying that knowledge to create what is being called "metallic glass." "The breakthrough involved solving the decades-old problem of just what glass is. It has been known that that despite its solid appearance, glass and gels are actually in a 'jammed' state of matter — somewhere between liquid and solid — that moves very slowly. Like cars in a traffic jam, atoms in a glass are in something like suspended animation, unable to reach their destination because the route is blocked by their neighbors. So even though glass is a hard substance, it never quite becomes a proper solid, according to chemists and materials scientists."
See? That guy in SF did invent it, just like Scotty said.
Mission: To provide products that consume time and energy as entertainingly as permitted by the laws of thermodynamics.
There seems a transparent aluminum story every couple of years
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
I thought we already had transparent aluminum? Hell, even Scotty used it to save the future way back when!
---- Liquid was a patriot ----
Warning that article contains anti-science! Room temperature glass has a viscosity of 10^22 poise. The viscosity of a liquid controls how fast it flows under gravity. (SAE 30 motor oil has a viscosity of about 1 poise, water is 0.01 poise.) The viscosity of glass is so high that you could wait the entire age of the universe and see no measurable thickening of the glass under earth gravity. Don't believe the "Old Window" myth! Just because glass is a liquid doesn't mean all of our windows will melt out in only a few hundred/thousand/million/billion years
Not true. At room temp it would take MILLIONS of years for the glass to distort, not a mere few thousand. This can be tested by checking the viscosity of glass at different temperatures.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Glass does flow at room temperature. It would just take millions of years instead of a thousand years for you to notice. Glass at room temperature has a viscosity so high you can't perceive the flow without an electron microscope. Get that glass to about 1300 degrees Fahrenheit and you can mold it like slightly-hard silly putty.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.