The Physics of glass

FEB 01, 1982

Our quest for a satisfactory conceptual model of the way crystallization is frustrated in supercooled liquids is still in its infancy, but not for want of experimental data.

DOI: 10.1063/1.2914932

James C. Phillips

Some four thousand years ago man discovered glass in the embers of a fire built somewhere in the deserts of the Near East. A few years from now ultratransparent glass fibers will be transmitting more information than copper wires. Thus glass is at once both one of the oldest and one of the newest materials known to civilization. Yet the science of glass is still in its infancy, and the most basic questions remain largely unanswered.

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More about the Authors

James C. Phillips. Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill, New Jersey.