Your materials professor has about as much merit behind his/her claim as someone who claims that glass is a solid.
Glass is strange stuff—much more strange than we give it credit for, actually. Whether or not to call it a liquid or a solid honestly has not been scientifically established (not sure if this is even a plausible task, given the false dichotomy of a solid/liquid paradigm), as it can hold qualities of both and have unique qualities. As mentioned in this short article I’ll (see the URL), some could even legitimately claim that glass is a unique type of matter all it’s own.
I agree with the article that it makes more sense to refer to glass as a solid, as it DOES meet the standards established by our every day experiences, but it really should be recognized (in a critical situation) that it really isn’t more of one or the other.
http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/General/Glass/glass.html
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christiantheatheist reblogged this from dat-asterisk and added:
The thickness at the bottom is only because of the inconsistency caused by old glass making methods. It’s never pointed...
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alnator said:
I believe that glass is classified as an amorphous solid. A solid with no regular crystal lattice structure. In such a way, it resembles a liquid on a molecular level; however, it most definitely is classified as a solid.
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dat-asterisk reblogged this from christiantheatheist and added:
Because it is….if you look at old glass panes, you will see it is thicker at the bottom than at the top.
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tumblingatheist reblogged this from christiantheatheist and added:
Your materials professor has about as much merit behind his/her claim as someone who claims that glass is a solid. Glass...
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christiantheatheist posted this
