Glorious glass – worth more than gold?(britishmuseum.org)
britishmuseum.org
Glorious glass – worth more than gold?
https://www.britishmuseum.org/blog/glorious-glass-worth-more-gold
14 comments
Note to self, if you have some game changing technology and only you know about it, pretend you have a nemesis who stole your secret and is in the process of notifying the Assyrians or the Soviets or the Martians or whatever
I find myself from time to time wondering how we discovered vitreous materials in the first place. Roaring fire on a mud flat perhaps? Kids putting random shit in campfires?
Dirt in certain places has the right mix of minerals to melt at much lower temperatures than sand alone, and would have made melted lumps under large campfires. The source material might have been natural, or the side-effect of some other industry, such as slag from smelting.
You can imagine the sequence of steps: Kids playing with sticks pulling out the red-hot gooey mess. Trying to make the gooey things solidify into interesting shapes. Realising the results are durable and shiny, if a bit ugly in colour. Then experimenting with mixing different kinds of dirt and clay to change the colours. Eventually discovering that translucent is possible, then transparent, etc...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_glass
You can imagine the sequence of steps: Kids playing with sticks pulling out the red-hot gooey mess. Trying to make the gooey things solidify into interesting shapes. Realising the results are durable and shiny, if a bit ugly in colour. Then experimenting with mixing different kinds of dirt and clay to change the colours. Eventually discovering that translucent is possible, then transparent, etc...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_glass
Very large bonfires might reach about 2000F. Sand melts to glass at 3000F.
Obsidian is volcanic glass. We might have also seen glass near meteorite impacts, or perhaps lightning strikes. If not from those natural phenomena, we might have discovered it as a side product of smelting copper, or perhaps some shop's apprentice messing around with the furnace.
Obsidian is volcanic glass. We might have also seen glass near meteorite impacts, or perhaps lightning strikes. If not from those natural phenomena, we might have discovered it as a side product of smelting copper, or perhaps some shop's apprentice messing around with the furnace.
In particular, copper smithing predates glassmaking, 10000 years ago versus 4000 years ago
Copper melts at 1085 C, cast iron at 1200 C, steel at a bit under 1400 C, glass at well over 1400 C.
My guess is that glass was discovered by someone trying to invent steel making.
My guess is that glass was discovered by someone trying to invent steel making.
Crucible steel.
Perhaps its from metallurgy? or maybe cooking fires that got out of hand in a home made stove?
cooking fires on the beach i'd imagine.
Sorry, but cooktops are definitely NOT glass....
Induction cooktops are.
a lot of them are, like ceran cooktops