You may have lived for field trips as a kid, looking forward to a whole day of out-of-school fun and exploring. That is, until you got started on a tour of some musty building that seemed, well, boring. Not even the tour guide's explanation of how the glass in the wavy, uneven windowpanes has slowly flowed downward over time could keep your attention.
Liquid windowpanes? No.
Rather than the (magical-sounding) slow drip of centuries, the reason old glass windows aren't perfectly even and clear is because of how they were made. Until the early-mid 1800s, most window glass was made using a process called the crown method. The glass was blown, flattened, heated and spun, yielding a sheet that was relatively cheap to produce. It was also rippled and thicker in some places than in others.
In other words, the windows looked that way when they were installed, and they look that way now. No downhill liquid flow is involved. (And if you're really wondering: Glass is an amorphous solid. Learn more about it in "What makes glass transparent?")
Start the Countdown |
10: Mount Everest Is The Tallest Mountain in the World. |
9: Body Heat Dissipates Mainly Through the Head. |
8: The Great Wall of China Is the Only Man-made Object Visible from Space. |
7: Glass Is a Slow-moving Liquid. |
6: Mother Birds Will Abandon Babies if You Touch Them. |
5: Different Parts of Your Tongue Detect Different Tastes. |
4: People Thought the World Was Flat Before Columbus. |
3: Deoxygenated Blood Is Blue. |
2: Chameleons Change Color to Blend in with Surroundings. |
1: Humans Have Five Senses. |
Up Next |
