The Physics of glass

Abstract

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.