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Melvyn Bragg

Athene Donald

Jim Bennett

Paul McMillan

Simon Tillotson

In Our Time: The Science of Glass

The Science of Glass

28/05/2015

BBC Radio 4 - In Our Time, The Science of Glass

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the puzzling science of glass.

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the puzzling science of glass which, though hard and brittle, retains aspects of a liquid once cooled into its solid form.

While glass items have been made for at least 5,000 years, scientists are yet to explain, conclusively, what happens when the substance it's made from moves from a molten state to its hard, transparent phase. It is said to be one of the great unsolved problems in physics. While apparently solid, the glass retains certain properties of a liquid. At times, ways of making glass have been highly confidential; in Venice in the Middle Ages, disclosure of manufacturing techniques was a capital offence. Despite the complexity and mystery of the science of glass, glass technology has continued to advance from sheet glass to crystal glass, optical glass and prisms, to float glasses, chemical glassware, fibre optics and metal glasses.

With:

Dame Athene Donald
Professor of Experimental Physics at the University of Cambridge and Master of Churchill College, Cambridge

Jim Bennett
Former Director of the Museum of the History of Science at the University of Oxford and Keeper Emeritus at the Science Museum

Paul McMillan
Professor of Chemistry at University College London

Producer: Simon Tillotson.

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