I Heart Chaos

Brilliant glass stirs itself with a little spin

Maybe you don’t like the sound of spoons clinking in glasses or maybe you just like incredibly simple and cool technology when you stir your tea. Either way, by giving the inside of a glass a specific spiraling, you can make a cup that stirs itself with just a little push.

posted 25 November, 2012
by cranberryzero
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This tiny piece of glass can supposedly hold data forever

Magnetic storage can easily degrade within a lifetime. Flash memory can last longer, but it can still be corrupted over time as the internal components start to break down. But this time little frame of glass, above, is a storage medium from Hitachi that according to the company’s claims, can store data forever, under even the harshest of circumstances.

posted 24 September, 2012
by cranberryzero
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And now, here’s a guy sculpting a horse out of glass

Just fucking beautiful.

posted 04 September, 2012
by cranberryzero
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MIT develops anti-fog, self-cleaning, no-glare glass

Glass has been used by humans for thousands and thousands of years, and we just keep figuring out how to make it better. Researchers at MIT recently developed a glass that doesn’t fog, doesn’t have glare and doesn’t get spots or dirt stuck to it.

Corning’s “A Day of Glass 2”, even more awesome futuristic visions of a transparent world

This is a follow-up to Corning’s original “Day of Glass” video from a while back, and it is sheer advertising, but it’s a neat look at a sci-fi future full of interactive transparent glass that will probably be here before you know it.

Gorgeous and ghostly 3D portraits in plate glass

By combining modern laser-etching technology with old fashioned glass, Miami based Indian-American artist NFN Kalyan has created something new and spectacular, gorgeous and haunting.

posted 04 January, 2012
by cranberryzero
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Working model of Stephenson’s steam engine made entirely out of glass

“This Model of Stephenson’s Steam Engine was made in 2008 by master glassblower Michal Zahradník. The crankshaft is glass. The piston is glass. The counterweight that makes the wheel spin evenly is glass. Imagine that everything is made out of glass. There are no sealants used. All is accomplished by a perfectly snug fit. The gap between the piston and its compartment is so small that the water that condensates from the steam seals it shut! “

Via

posted 06 November, 2011
by cranberryzero
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Japanese company creates almost completely glare-free “invisible” glass

Glass is awesome for so many reasons, but it’s just so damn… shiny. With everything else going on in the world, my day is totally ruined by getting glare on my phone so I can’t see what I’m tweeting. What a drag.

posted 02 November, 2011
by cranberryzero
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According to Corning, in the future everything will be made of glass.

Let’s all reflect on this…

Nano-structured glass creates new type of computer memory

Humans have been using and making glass for thousands of years, and it’s pretty much always served the same purpose— to make shit that you can see through. But researchers at the University of Southampton in the UK have made nano glass, a substance in which the way light travels through the glass can be controlled to store data.

Viruses as beautiful blown glass art

Glass blower Luke Jerram, with the help of virologists, made a series of deadly gorgeous viruses in blown glass. Viruses seen under a microscope are already deceivingly beautiful, but in glass, even more so. Above is smallpox.

Near absolute zero, glass melts

Thanks to the weirdness of quantum mechanics, chilling glass to extremely low temperatures may cause it to melt. Glass will melt if heated to high enough temperatures (though contrary to popular myth, glass at everyday temperatures does not flow, even over very long timescales). Now, Thomas Markland of Columbia University in New York and colleagues say it may also melt when subjected to extreme cooling. At temperatures near absolute zero, the jiggling motion of its constituent atoms slows, and according to quantum mechanics, those atoms start behaving more like smeared out waves than particles.

The team simulated glass’s behaviour, taking quantum effects into account, and found that the wave-like behaviour helped the atoms flow from one place to another, squeezing through spaces that would normally be too tight to navigate. The freedom of movement melted the glass structure, making the material behave like a fluid instead, the researchers report in Nature Physics.

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Why is glass transparent, but not other materials?

It’s a pretty simple question, and if you Google the question, you’re going to get a hell of a lot of wrong answers. Here’s the right damn answer, from the University of Nottingham.

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