Science Creates Glass That's Stronger Than Steel

[Latinidiot]

So when you drop the glass, instead of
"shit, I just broke the glass",
its more of,
"crap, I just shattered the tile it landed on! Hey the glass is fine"

yes, everybody uses million dollar technology to create a drinking aid.


Like the Aramid/kevlar coffee mug!

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

Palladium? Eeek...that's bumped the price way up already.

 

[Ldude893]

Imagine using that kind of glass for the new Freedom Tower in New York.
I wonder, would the glass bend if struck by a plane or would it melt due to the heat of the resulting explosion?

 

[Gahars]

That sounds pretty awesome, can't wait to make armor entirely out of this new glass.

 

[megalomania]

Cool, but how much does it cost though? Would it be economical to place it in my house or car? Or would it cost quite a bit.

Well let me put it this way: the main component of glass, silicon oxide or sand, is cheap enough to be effectively free for glass manufacture. Palladium costs about $800 per ounce.

I don't know how much Palladium they need per ounce of glass, but either way it will be expensive.

 

[Ulquiorra4sama]

Now you can throw stones in a glasshouse.

Only problem is... It might ricochet and hit you in the head now =P

OT: What kind of practical uses could there be for this except for spaceships? ...and Rapture(as has been mentioned before)

 

[Jake the Snake]

Spoiler: Finally this is plausible

Damn you ninja. Damn you to hell.

 

[Shoggoth2588]

This sounds really cool! I can't wait to see how crazy we get with this as a new building material: Not just for skyscrapers but how about bridges too? Also if this stuff is stronger than steel and light enough I could see this being used as a new form of body armor.

 

[SaintWaldo]

It's not transparent aluminum. It's a translucent palladium alloy. GOD!

I have no idea what that means and neither do you

I certainly DO know what a bulk-to-shear ratio means, smartass. You just demonstrated that you have NO clue why Spider-man's web-shooters work. You're out of the nerd club now. I swear, the standard for today's geek is WOEFULLY low.

I have no idea what that means and neither do you ...

I beg to differ! As a metallurgical and materials engineer, I know precisely what that means. It means that it has a large amount of plastic deformation, and assumedly very little elastic deformation, which means while it may not suffer brittle cracking, any deformation will be permanent. And the title given this article is misleading--a glass that's stronger than steel in what regard, and what steel? Is it's elastic modulus higher? It's shear modulus? It's tensile? Are we discussing a 1080 steel? 1045? 1211? Is it a high/low carbon steel that we're comparing the glass to, or is it a steel alloyed with other metals to increase it's arbitrary and untested value of "strong"?

And, is this glass anisotropic, or do we have to align it a certain way? Because if it is anisotropic, then it's uses will be even further limited and specialized, as the gentleman below me indicates. Equate this substance more to concrete that is reinforced with rebar, only instead of concrete it's glass, and instead of rebar it happens to be palladium. And understanding the nature of composites, I can already see problems with anisotropy, it's tensile modulus, and its readily-plastically deformed nature, all of which lead me to believe that, while great for safety glass, this would be terrible construction material.

Couple that with the fact that palladium is expensive as all hell, and therefore even less likely to be mass produced. You want a good, hard, non-fracturing glass? Add heavy alkalis, that should do the trick. You want space glass? Don't worry about it, there's only about an atmosphere of pressure inside your ship pressing out, and none on the outside pressing in.

A NEW HERO EMERGES!

 

[SpcyhknBC]

Just a few things that were on my mind when the writer of this article dropped a piece of straw on my back.

And just what did that have anything to do with his ignorance? You went on a tirade against religion but where did he indicate any degree of favor for mysticism? I frankly didn't appreciate the downgrading of Pluto because Tombaugh's story was one of triumph in the face of adversity, and because I didn't like the arbitrary manner in which it was done. Since when have scientists determined the truth by a show of hands? That kind of autocracy is something I'd expect out of medieval organized religion. I'd call that mock-worthy yes. If that's where science is headed these days.

Speaking of which, the two are not competing ideologies. Einstein was a man of faith who wanted to understand "the mind of god" and happened to be one of our greatest scientists. You mentioned the medieval Islamic empire and forgot they flourished under the unifying force of their religion. It wasn't until the 12th caliphate was destroyed by the mongols that they fell into ruin, and that had everything to do with the anarchy that that created, not a magical declaration from the mullahs that cast them into the fire. You're just as ignorant and fanatical as the people you bemoan, trying to make this about something it's not like some paranoid who sees the boogie man lurking in every shadow.

That straw only wound up on your back because you were grasping at it.

[awesome rant]

they read something this brilliant.

Brilliant? Not really. People are always willing to agree to a statement if it's something they want to hear, no matter how unintelligible it may be. We have a broad diversity of news outlets and politicians lined up to prove it. The evangelical atheist is really no better than any other zealot, be his stance religious, political or philosophical. He seeks his crusades in inappropriate places, sees challenges where there are none and lacks the understanding to respect other's points of view. He'll readily advise others to question their viewpoints, or simply criticize them, but takes no time to examine his own. Those who differ are automatically his inferior or are in need of salvation, such is their hypocrisy. If you honestly think the two cannot co-exist then you have made science your religion, and in playing defender of the faith left the realm of reason behind you.

I'd also like to point out that if you want a scientific article, go read the original literature. The Escapist is a gaming publication, not a science one. I'm also positive that their usage of terms like quantum magic is just to make you laugh. I agree entirely that the public's perception of science in this country is horrible, but is that any reason to go off on a journalist just trying to tell you about some cool thing he found? Wrong place for that comment.

 

[Indignation837]

I laughed at the "hello computer" tag.

 

[Andy Chalk]

I'm just going to reiterate what Spcychkwinatwhatever said above: this is a gaming-slash-nerd site. Here, when someone says "glass that's stronger than steel," we think, "Hello, computer?" If you do too, then you're in the right place.

The rest of you might want to reconsider your priorities.

 

[mattttherman3]

Wow, that's really cool, get me this stuff, make my whole car out of it. That would be really trippy in a thunderstorm.

 

[Susan Arendt]

I'm just going to reiterate what Spcychkwinatwhatever said above: this is a gaming-slash-nerd site. Here, when someone says "glass that's stronger than steel," we think, "Hello, computer?" If you do too, then you're in the right place.

The rest of you might want to reconsider your priorities.

So...you're advising people to rethink their priorities, because they understood something you don't, and felt under-estimated when you inferred our primitive intellects wouldn't understand alloys and compositions and things with... molecular structures.

Not sure why you're surprised with that one, myself.

It was a joke, and one that you are taking far too seriously and personally, for reasons I don't understand. If you thought for a moment that Andy was saying that our readers are "too stupid" to follow scientific materials, you're grossly mistaken. We're very aware of how intelligent our readers are - on a wide variety of subjects - which is why we do things like post bits of science niftiness.

We don't claim to be scientific experts, merely enthusiastic amateurs. If you know more on a particular subject, that's great - we encourage you to share your expertise so that we might learn more.

 

[Andy Chalk]

Not sure why you're surprised with that one, myself.

It was a joke, son.

The situation breaks down very simply. Sometimes we like to share the interesting stuff we stumble across during the course of our day, but as befits the nature of the site, we usually frame such things in the "nerd context." That means that when we see a story about steel-like glass, we're less inclined to talk about the hard science behind it than about traveling back in time to load some whales onto a Klingon cruiser. This is what we do, and it's what we've always done.

For those more interested in the science, the link to the original article on the Berkeley Lab is provided. People who saw the title and immediately thought, "A keyboard? How quaint" are already right where they should be.