World of Glass

The United Nations has declared 2022 as the International Year of Glass to celebrate the heritage and importance of this material in our lives.  This talk will explore some of the places where glasses are encountered, with examples ranging from the boiled sweets in a candy shop to the prehistoric arrow heads in archeology.  Since glass is formed from the liquid state, the talk will consider if cathedral glass can flow over the millennia.  It will also ask if there is anything special about the atomic nature of glass that leads to its magical properties

Professor Philip S Salmon, University of Bath