nt endeavor to transform his material with new life and new uses. The Corning Glass Works recently completed tests aimed at producing a material long considered impossibleâ€”a glass that would endure the terrific heat of direct flame on top of kitchen stoves.
During these trials, scientists with doctor’s degress became cooks. Glass made from 1,500 different formulae was tested. To reproduce actual kitchen conditions, these eminent men presided over the frying of 18,000 pounds of potatoes in glassware over many kinds of wood, coal, oil, gas and electric stoves!
As a direct result of this ordeal by fire came Pyrex glassware that defies flame and can be used as a serving dish on the table. More that that, laboratory workers cataloged the performance of 1,500 glass formulae, and increased immeasurably their knowledge of the product.
From the same laboratory has come fibrous glass, spun to a fineness seven to fifty times that of a human hair. A glass wool made up of these fibers resembles cotton batting, and is used extensively as insulation in ships and electric refrigerators, where vibration causes ordinary insulating material to settle. In addition, these superfine fibers have been wound around electric wires for insulation with excellent results; and they have been twisted into yarn and woven into textiles!
Today we wonder at the marvel of plastics, at the adaptability of glass. Tomorrow may see still a new material, with new advantages. It has been said that the pen is mightier than the sword but the fragile glass test tube bids fair to outrank them both.