In high school and college many people who have taken chemistry may have learned that there are only four states of matter:solid, liquid, gas, and plasma. Where would glass fall within these states? Most people you ask might say it’s a solid of course. You can touch it and hit it and it will not give way to your hand. It makes up our windows and protects us from weather, so why would it not be a solid? Well surprisingly the state of glass, or the transition of melted glass to a more solid glass, seems to be a very debated subject in the science world. In fact, in Science Magazine’s 125th Anniversary issue which contained the world’s top one hundred science questions yet to be answered, question 22 was, “What is the nature of the glassy state?” and question 21 goes hand in hand, “Is superfluidity possible in a solid?”(Science,2005). Its seems as though glass is a state of its own, between liquid and solid.
To understand the state of glass we must first have an understanding of the different states of matter. All matter is composed into states, and may move through these four existing states. The solid state is where the atoms of a substance are closely pact together with the only movement being the vibration of the atoms. The liquid state is where atoms are placed together in no order with a definite volume, but may move past each other giving it no definite shape. According to Science Magazine’s article in 1926 , glass exhibits traits from both of these states. It is similar to a liquid in that its atoms are randomly arranged, yet it has the fixed rigid bonding of a solid as well as the same high heat capacity(Science). This article in Science Magazine is a bit dated though and science changes drastically through years, especial...
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...te evidence as to how it would be a solid or even how it would occur to be one. It seems that this debate is evenly divided between specialists. Even more interesting is that most of the chemists and material specialists seem to believe that glass is clearly an amorphous solid and have scientific facts such as the structure of amorphous solids that has long been defined. On the other side, we see more physicists concluding that glass is either not a defined state yet or is a “super-cooled” liquid moving at a rate too slow to be defined. The solution to the glass transition has many more years of research to go and does not seem to be coming to a conclusion anytime soon. Glass may even possibly be its very own state outside of the common four states of matter. In the words of Dr. Harrowell, “Glass is an example, probably the simplest example, of the truly complex”.
Matter exists in three basic states: solid, liquid, or gas. A substance experiences a phase change when the physical characteristics of that substance change from one state to another state. Perhaps the most recognizable examples of phase changes are those changes from a solid to a liquid or a liquid to a gas. When a substance goes through a phase change, there is a change in the internal energy of the substance but not the temperature of the substance (Serway, et al. 611).
Glass transition is not the same as melting. Melting (or freezing, or boiling or condensation) undergoes a change in heat capacity and a latent heat is involved or in another term, melting is a first order transition that only occurs in crystalline polymers. However, for glass transition, it is a second-order transition that only occurs in the amorphous polymers and does not involve latent heat since amorphous polymers have a relatively weak intermolecular forces that bond them together and can be broken once heat is applied whereas crystalline polymers have a strong primary (cross-linking) covalent bonds. Glass transition temperature and melting temperature can occur in the same process because in a semi-crystalline polymers, both amorphous and crystalline regions exist where the amorphous polymers undergo only the glass transition and the crystalline polymers undergo only
The behavior of every material composite substance is either completely deterministically caused by the nature of the material parts making it up or is partially randomly caused.
The tangible characteristics are no longer present, and the wax melts. The melting, replaces the honey flavor with nothing, the flower scent with no scent, the cold and hard become the hot and liquid, the wax becomes too hot to touch let alone make a noise when rapped upon, the color changes, the shape shifts, and the size increases. Thus, everything Descartes thought to note about the wax had changed or disappeared. In his original description, he relied only upon his sense to explain the wax. But after that has failed him, Descartes calls into doubt his senses and decides to define the wax without the use of his senses. The problem Descartes runs into with this line of thinking is he now is trusting his senses to discount what his sense told him a first time. Therefore, Descartes must neglect to use his senses for the new description of the wax. Leaving his only knowledge of the wax to be its condition to change, Descartes’ new description of the wax states “only that it is something extended, flexible, and mutable … rather, I perceive it through the mind alone” (67-68). Descartes limits his knowledge from qualitative descriptions and only uses quantitative measures from his
When Holden enters the museum he notices all the glasses cases and he comes to a moment of realization. The structures inside the glass case represent what he wants from his life. He doesn't want time progress he would just like to be frozen in time living in his best moments. If he could, he wouldn't be so depressed and his life would be flawless. He might be wanting to put a moment when he was younger and he was happy with his family and want to keep it in there. This was when his brother was still alive and he hadn't learned the term phony. He wouldn't want that to progress, but he notices that as time goes by his dream will never be accomplished.
In today’s society not many people realize that they are thankful to wake up and live another day. Just imagine being lost at night in an area you are completely unfamiliar with. Imagine it being cold, and you having no clothing. You don’t have any money and you are starving. Now, all your ears hear are the screams of the one’s around you being killed. To add to the torture, you are unable to control your next move, nor the next. There is constant death, starvation, and suffering happening all around you, but you cannot do anything to help the situation besides fending for yourself to survive. This is the devastating and cruel world that Chanrithy Him’s When Broken Glass Floats introduces to its readers.
Ever think you are in control only to find out that you are not and you are in way over your head? Well, that is the life that Kristina Georgia Snow has everyone follow in Glass. Glass is the continuing book of Crank. Crank is about a innocent,17 year old girl named Kristina, who is on her way to graduating early when she has to go spend one month in the summer with her estranged father. While at her fathers house, she tries crank for the first time and falls in love with the monster. The book follows her journey with the monster and the consequences that come with it like hurting her friends and loved ones. The book ends with the teen becoming pregnant due to a product of rape. Glass picks up shortly after Kristina Snow, also known by her "alter ego" Bree, has the baby. She names her baby Hunter Seth.
To put it another way, properties are what make up an object, and substance is what the
The Glass Castle symbolizes the illusions that Jeannette must release in order to fully mature. For years, Dad has made blueprints and floor plans for a magnificent transparent palace built in the desert and relying on solar panels for electricity.
One of the most interesting properties of glass is that of it being able to bend and reflect light. Through the bending and reflecting of light rays, an image is created. What happens though when the image formed is not the focal point but rather is the source of the image, the glass itself? In the commencement of Dave Eggers’s novel ‘The Circle,’ there is recurring images of glass. The lustrous, pristine, and progressive visage that glass supplies encapsulated the Company’s essence of high quality and rapid advancement, and as such comprised most of the physical structure of the building. However, the high-end aesthetic that glass provides is not the only idea that Eggers is attempting to promulgate through the glass images. The less obvious
Generally when some one writes a play they try to elude some deeper meaning or insight in it. Meaning about one's self or about life as a whole. Tennessee Williams' "The Glass Menagerie" is no exception the insight Williams portrays is about himself. Being that this play establishes itself as a memory play Williams is giving the audience a look at his own life, but being that the play is memory some things are exaggerated and these exaggerations describe the extremity of how Williams felt during these moments (Kirszner and Mandell 1807). The play centers itself on three characters. These three characters are: Amanda Wingfield, the mother and a women of a great confusing nature; Laura Wingfield, one who is slightly crippled and lets that make her extremely self conscious; and Tom Wingfield, one who feels trapped and is looking for a way out (Kirszner and Mandell 1805-06). Williams' characters are all lost in a dreamy state of illusion or escape wishing for something that they don't have. As the play goes from start to finish, as the events take place and the play progresses each of the characters undergoes a process, a change, or better yet a transition. At the beginning of each characters role they are all in a state of mind which causes them to slightly confuse what is real with what is not, by failing to realize or refusing to see what is illusioned truth and what is whole truth. By the end of the play each character moves out of this state of dreamy not quite factual reality, and is better able to see and face facts as to the way things are, however not all the characters have completely emerged from illusion, but all have moved from the world of dreams to truth by a whole or lesser degree.
...ct that metals usually have high melting points and nonmetals usually have low melting points, although carbon, a nonmetal, has the highest melting point of all elements. Metallic characteristics decrease moving left to right across the table and increase moving down the periodic table while the opposite is true of nonmetallic
Now, what do we mean when we say something is in its purest state? Perhaps we mean that if we find something within a remote location, which has never been exposed to human contact, it would be in its purest state. But then could this also be classified beneath our third definition of "natural", something that has not been touched by man? Then let us take another approach - we could interpret the term "purest" as being in its simplest form; if we examine any object, its purest form would be as a single molecule, compound, we could even go as far to say that it is the atoms that comprise it. Yet everything is made of atoms, so would everything be in a "natural" state? The use of the word "purest" is therefore not suitable for a definition of "natural", and one would have to be more specific with its meaning.
Since the days of Aristotle, all substances have been classified into one of three physical states. A substance having a fixed volume and shape is a solid. A substance, which has a fixed volume but not a fixed shape, is a liquid; liquids assume the shape of their container but do not necessarily fill it. A substance having neither a fixed shape nor a fixed volume is a gas; gases assume both the shape and the volume of their container. The structures of gases, and their behavior, are simpler than the structures and behavior of the two condensed phases, the solids and the liquids
As human beings we have the capabilities of thought and reasoning, which is why we have evolved the way we have. However one can never be to sure that what we think and what we reason is really truth. And that idea can lead a person asking certain questions; What is the nature of existence? What is the nature of reality and it’s principles? but then more questions follow within These; What are we touching? What are we looking at? What are these things interfering and altering our lives? Are they the same in reality as they are in our mind? What are these substances? Are they even substances? If they are real then why are they, and what are they? Many great philosophers tackled these questions. Philosophers such as Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Spinoza, and Berkeley. All of them came up with an idea of what substance is.