What is Glass?

Glass is a combination of sand and other minerals that are melted together at very high temperatures to form a material that is needed for a wide range of uses. Apart from being transparent, inexpensive to make, easy to shape when it’s molten, it is a hard brittle substance,
typically transparent or translucent. Irrespective of the shape or size, glass is made from liquid sand. This occurs by fusing sand with soda and lime and cooling rapidly.

Today man has mastered the glass-making process and can make many different types of glass in infinitely varied colours formed into a wide range of products. Glass, chemically, is actually more like a liquid, but at room temperature it is so viscous or sticky it looks and feels like a solid. At higher temperatures glass gradually becomes softer and more like a liquid. It is this latter property, which allows glass to be poured, blown, pressed and moulded into such a variety of shapes.

It’s important to know that glass is one of the oldest and most versatile human-created materials in the world and one of the most popular material in our homes. Glass can be found wherever you look, both within and without a building: Building constructions are majorly made with glass; rooms in your home will have a glass window or a glass mirror, cars have glass installed for protection and clearer vision, our gadgets are made with glass screens. Glass as a material in its own, will always exist. But many new applications and manufacturing processes will involve glass in combination with other materials.

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