Glass: “Clearly” an Underrated Material
I am standing over 1000 feet above the ground. Below me, the city of Chicago looks to be the size of a Lego set that I would build when I was younger. There is only a transparent floor of glass preventing me from falling to the ground. The various properties of glass make it one of the most commonly used materials that interest not only engineers and consumers, but me too.
I think the most obvious property of glass that you can see (or technically not), is its transparency. Many people take this property for granted, despite how often we take advantage of it. Glass allows us to see the outside world from the safety of our homes. It not only allows us to see through windows protecting us from the environment outside, but it also is one of the most important materials in screens or monitors. Glass allows billions of people to complete their work every day: without it, most of the advanced electronics that we use today would not exist.
A less commonly known fact is that glass is actually a relatively strong material, especially when it is heat-treated or chemically strengthened. As I previously stated, the observation deck is made up mainly of glass. The three sheets of glass that the floor of the viewing deck is comprised of can hold up to 5 tons! Despite the resounding strength of the glass platform, many are still too frightened to stand on it (including my dad), because of the common notion that glass is a weak material. For this reason, I think that glass is an underestimated material. Most people think that it is just a weak material used for their aesthetic, when it is truly something much bigger than that. Although glass is very brittle, its high tensile strength allows glass to be a strong material that can be used in many practical situations.
Finally, a beneficial property of glass is its ability to take many shapes. Glass can be in the shape of anything from a rectangular window to the tapered shape of an Erlenmeyer Flask. Since glass can be shaped during melting, it can cool down to take any form. The many forms that glass can take on help make it useful in laboratories, since it is not only useful to see through the flask or beaker, but also that it is in the proper shape to ensure safety.
While the transparency allows for everyday uses such as windows, the complexity of the many shapes can allow it to be used for both art and science. I think the most interesting part about glass is that it can be used in more ways than we can ever imagine. The sheer versatility of glass makes it one of the most interesting materials to me.
