Hacker News new | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit login

Glass is normally made with 50-75% silicon dioxide (sand, basically) and the remainder various metallic salts or oxides like lead oxide, soda, potash, etc. These are combined as powders and when you melt them down they all dissolve together into glass.

From a layman's perspective all these metallic compounds seem really different from glass but in reality that's the magic of glass. I'm no chemist but SiO2 doesn't seem chemically very different from PbO or TiO2.




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: