Science Floats Glass To Gain New Insight

Scientists at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Oak Ridge, TN are hoping to gain a greater insight into the nature of glass using a new $1.65 million Neutron Electrostatic Levitation Chamber (NESL). Using the NESL, scientists are hoping to float liquids and study them, unmixed with the environment, in order to understand glass. It sounds somewhat trite, but this is actually a really interesting experiment. Glass is not so much a product or item as it is a state of being--it's a part of the solid, gas, liquid set. Team leader and physicist Kenneth Kelton explains,

We've used glasses since 4,000 years ago in Mesopotamia, but we still don’t understand the process – how it goes from a liquid to a glass. It's one of the most interesting dynamical processes anywhere around. If we look at the difference in structure from a liquid to a glass, we can see a difference, but it's very subtle. The question is, What's different?

In order to figure out what makes glass different from liquid, Kelton and his team are going to float liquid forms of several materials, such as titanium, zirconium, nickel, platinum and their alloys. Hopefully in time, we will see some solid results from the study!