Extremely well done documentary. Using glass as a data storage medium is a stroke of genius and could ensure that digitized motion pictures and sound would be archived for centuries. Almost totally immune to temperature and moisture contamination, this medium would be ideal for very long time storage and retrieval of historic film and sound recordings. Thanks for posting!
@@CawKee In the 1978 Superman the Kryptonians and The Fortress of Solitude used crystals to store data. I don't know if that was taken from an earlier appearance in the comics though.
Darn, you mean we won't get the rings like in Zardoz? My only question is if future people will be able to retrieve the info. That is, if we've gone from 5 inch floppies to 2TB microSD in a little more than a dog's lifetime or from film strips to layered glass in mine, how archaic will that be by the time of DS9? Will the warnings on nuke waste sites be as cryptic as hieroglyphics before it's safe to enter? With a growing trend to encouraged ignorance, how can we know our collected knowledge won't go the way of Alexandria?
My family was involved in the making of glass bottles & jars for many years. You might say we had glass in our blood. I was familiar with all but the last part of this video presentation. The glass fiber optical method I have seen before. However, the last part about data storage just blew me away. That is the new age of glass. Exciting times lay ahead. This is a great video.
One of the best presentations of a rather complex set of operations to make a variety of glass products that we all take for granted. No annoying music or distractions with only a crip explanation of all the vital steps from mining to making the most sophisticated products like fiber optics and lenses
Agreed. Was a bit perplexed they didn't mention units at 20:27 when talking about optical fiber tensile strength of "100,000 per inch" (pascals maybe?). Still a cool doc.
In the 70s as an apprentice glazier I went on a tour of a float glass plant. It blew me away how big it was. When our class was visiting the furnace was in transition from clear to bronze glass. The current glass was unusable as it was somewhere in between proper clear or bronze. As soon as the glass was cut at the end of the line the huge sheets of glass fell down a chute to go back to the furnace. The sound of 10' x 12' sheets of glass falling, about one per second without pause, down a huge steel chute was INSANE.
My job as an ISO assessor afforded me the opportunity to go to many glass plants; however, these were for glass fibers of all types. Only one was a bottle plant for medical applications. Most fascinating of operations. Great video.
Very well done and I could never figure out how to make plate glass, never thought of floating it on tin. This should be standard course material in primary and secondary education.
I had a few float glass factories as clients that I visited regularly. Watching float glass go from sand, etc. to cut stacked sheets was fascinating. Although there no aluminum was allowed as if an aluminum can or even just a pull tab it would leave fish eyes in the final product.
I took two semesters of "Glass" in college many years ago. While we were required to blow at least one vessel, i.e. cup, vase, bowl etc., once i satisfied that requirement i focused on casting the glass into molds i made sand. I made some beautiful pieces of art which I sold. I wish i kept them 😊 A glass studio is amazing and i respect the artistry.
Very informative,WOW!!! Some of those words were so long,I have to look them up in a dictionary. But I'm glad to know that humankind are making so many advances in technology😊
I really did enjoy this video. I didn’t know that it took so much material to make glass, but I learned something new and it’s very fascinating. The way these products are made.
Making the glass is an amazing process but the process of the machinery and equipment design and then the manufacture and install of the equipment might be even more amazing.
Extremely interesting, can this glass industry, be taught in a Vocational School? I’m sure after seeing this Documentary, some teachers and students would be interested in it. Where are these glass plants, in America, and elsewhere? I think glass is a great asset in all industries, and people love natural things, like glass, wood, stone. Best wishes and thanks for this Documentary. ♥️♥️🙏🙏🇺🇸🇺🇸
A very well put together video of the complete process of glass making. Interesting and informative. Only one complaint. The narrator, whether it be a real person or an AI is speaking with a British English accent, (basically perfect non-accented English that everyone can understand). Why then would the word alum-in-ium be pronounced as aloo-min-um?
Fused quartz glass is very hard to work with. That is why they add softening impurities such as Boron and Potassium. This reduces the energy required to soften the material, as well as changing the glasses coefficient of expansion. You can create layers of glass with a gradual expansion rate, that can be manipulated to expand and contract, at the same rate as certain metals, at tremendous temperatures.
I work as an engineer at an optics manufacturer. We love working with FS. We often shape and polish high purity FS to nanometer precision for ultraviolet applications as well.
Sir Alastair Pilkington (1920-1995), a British engineer and businessman, invented the float glass process in 1952 and announced it in 1959. Pilkington and his R&D team at the UK-based Pilkington Glass company developed the process to replace the traditional grinding and polishing method for making plate glass.
So many people are saying we should dump plastic and go glass for all our containers. After seeing this video I wonder if they realize the complexities of doing so, not to mention the cost of retooling and the change in the supply chain for these companies.
I’m not sure if I’m remembering this properly, but back in the day, say, in the 20s and 30s (I’m basing this on the age of my house - 1936 - and some of the original stained, leaded glass windows) I thought I remember window glass was first molded into large, hollow cylinders somehow, the glass being the thickness of the window pane, then scored, heated and unfolded flat. It was interesting in that it had some swirls or imperfections on its surface, but was obviously clear enough to not notice them in daylight. When I had to fix some broken panes with today’s perfect flat glass, it just didn’t have that antique look that was so desirable in keeping that craftsman-like look that went so well with the rest of the house’s hardwood floors and trim, plaster work, and so on. Laf, they also leaked like crazy, not optimal during Wisconsin winters. We ended up replacing the windows with today’s perfectly constructed windows, but for some windows, I was able to move the original glass ‘inside’ the original wood windows, placing the modern units on the outside. Those couldn’t open of course, but at least from the inside I was able to maintain a few of those beautiful windows. But what a difference - no more draftiness, major improvement in noise isolation, easy to wash, etc. If anyone can correct me on my cylinder recollection, please correct me. A wonderful documentary, thank you.
You are correct about the cylinder method of making window pane glass in earlier times. I have seen a lot of this kind of glass in my career as a home renovator; the optical imperfections, air bubbles etc in these old windows give them a charm and a character quite lacking in modern float glass. However, if you wait around for a few centuries, you will see optical distortions appearing in today's windows. Glass is actually classified as a semi-viscous solid, so over time (a LONG time) gravity will cause a vertical pane to gradually thicken at the bottom as it thins at the top.
Not aluminum, but alumina (aluminum oxide) is the ingredient mentioned at 6:01 And of course if boron oxide is used with less lime & soda borosilicate or Pyrex is obtained.... didn't know that germanía (germanium oxide) is used in fiber optics cable!
The lenses in mobile phones are much smaller than the camera lenses shown here. The quality of mobile phone images is astounding. It would be good to hear something about those lenses.
Modern cellphone cameras use injected-molded, plastic lenses with aspheric surfaces (think of a lens with ripples on it). They do this because light passes into the lens as a different angle as you travel away from the center. Making these aspheric surfaces can lower the overall lens count. The lenses are plastic injected-molded for mass production and weight savings.
_The robo voice is annoying. There are scientific mistakes in the explanations. And the explanations are very surface-level shallow. Nice images, though._
Interesting. Not sure I'll be back on the channel though, as the AI voice presenter is, whilst mostly pretty clear, a) devoid of humanity, and b) still making quite a few mistakes. I guess you have your name inscribed on the middle to prevent knock-off artists ripping off your work (assuming it is yours?) but it's a shame, as it does lessen the viewing enjoyment. But I appreciate all the work you did on research and presentation (assuming, as I say, it was done by you.) Sorry to be a downer. Perhaps you really are genuine, but I've encountered a few channels that seem to have trouble like this recently, which makes me a bit cagey about this sort of presentation.
0:42 Sand, as it is found in nature, is NOT used in concrete. That particular sand is manufactured from rock. Sand in nature, is too rounded for use in concrete.
They got to that a bit later on, when they show the industrial sand-making process and sorting for various uses such as concrete, glass, paint, toothpaste, etc.
@@donaldcarey114 Seems like an instance of what normally happens vs the occasional edge cases. It is true that wind and water weathered sand is generally not fit for use in concrete, but there are bound to be exceptions to the general rule. My guess is that most construction sand suppliers source from a rock crushing and sifting operation, though you will also find the river-bed mine, etc. operations out there occasionally.
Saudi Arabia imports Sand for use in construction, from other Countries, namely Australia. Their Sand is much too fine and they cannot produce a Concrete strong enough for Highrise buildings... apparently....
The limestone would be for the calcium carbonate ingredient, a minor component compared to the quartz sand (from sandstone, mentioned starting @ 1:25 ) containing most of the silica. This isn't an AI generated doc, though I do have a gripe with later section on fiber optics.
Sounds like AI to me. The unusually stressed words are artificial decorations rather than rhetorical gestures though it is superior to most AI. And then there are weird accents sprinkled in random ways.
Glass was first made in Persia thousands of years ago. The art and skills were a major source of economic strength for Palistine in the time of Christ, and the tomb from which he rose belonged to a wealthy glassmaker who later became a missionary Christian and founded the Christian colony of Glastonbury, England, Joseph of Haran/Athena.
Glass breaks too easily for data storage unless sealed in a device. Fused Quarts or, better yet, sapphire would be a better option. Man-made sapphire is now fairly easy to create. Currently they can make a 15" solid cube of sapphire relatively easily. It just takes a little time. Slice those into cubes and you will have truly unbreakable millennia-long storage.
