NEW GLASS

Waikato Times, Volume 125, Issue 20955, 7 November 1939, Page 2

NEW GLASS

r i t DOES NOT BREAK UNDER HEAT - (From a Correspondent) i NEW YORK, Sept. 25 f Glass that shrinks but has no other - modest qualities when it comes to resisting heat of high intensity, is the latest development by technicians of the Corning Glass Works, where the great mirror for the 200-inch Palomar telescope was cast. In fact, the new development is an outgrowth of the same research that made the world’s largest glass-cast-e ing job possible. The difference is in l the “brewing” of the borosilicate _ “batter.” It makes it possible to g I heat a glass dish or laboratory test t | tube or baby’s bottle to red-hot teme perature, almost to the melting point, n j then plunge it into ice water, and d j take it out cool and unbroken. It seems impossible. It doesn’t fit e I the dictionary definition of glass. It - j can’t be true, but it is. Those who r, j know, say the discovery will rank ! with the most remarkable glass developments of all time. e The most peculiar part of the pro- - j cess is that articles made under the ! new method shrink to less than twod. I thirds of their original volume, yet >f ! suffer no distortion of form. That e ; means a linear shrinkage of about 13 l— per cent., so for a 9-inch dish, tech;r nicians start with one that is 10$ L- ! inches in diameter.