Spyke

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26 replies

dmv.social

It's the cooling of silica (really, any material) that makes it a glass, and even then, transparency in the visual wavelength is not automatically certain.

94

Good example. Obsidian is apparently 70% silica. Iron is apparently what makes it black in color. If it's thin enough, it is translucent.

If you cool pure silica slowly enough, with impurities to cause seeding, you will get tons of crystals, not a single glass, that won't be transparent.

60
lemmy.ml

3090 degrees is above its boiling point (which is 2950 degrees).

So it doesn't become "clear", it literally vaporises.

39
neptunereply
dmv.social

You are talking Celsius while the meme is likely referring to F (you can tell because Obama)

75
Spzireply

This ambiguity is what I had in mind when I read "let me be clear". Though now I get it.

1
lemmy.world

I wonder how they figured that out

Did molten lava touch sand and then they were like 😳

21
briskreply
aussie.zone

Maybe tektites? Natural glass formed when lightning meteorites strikes sand. I only remember the name because they share it with the jumpy spiders from Zelda

21
tektitereply
slrpnk.net

When lightning strikes sand it creates fulgerites.

Tektites are formed when meteorites strike.

8
briskreply
aussie.zone

I am sorry for insulting your people

8

If you spent your days cooking with fire, and your nights watching it and warming yourself, you'd definitely start tossing anything you could find into it just to see what would happen. People did this every day and night for eons.

3

I think people just experimented a lot. Try enough random things, you're bound to come across cool chemistry every once in a while. If they figured out how to make really hot fire, that opens the path to "let's try making various things really hot to see what happens".

Of course, I know basically nothing about [pre]history or human development so I could be way off

1

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