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      ◦ Wisconsin Society of Science Teachers Webcast Interview  
           

 
 Local TV interview about exploding tempered glass table tops 

 

On September 20, 2007, WKOW-TV in Madison, WI, interviewed Mark Ediger about exploding tempered glass table tops.  By clicking below, you can watch this interview which contains a fun demonstration on the properties of tempered glass.  We thank WKOW-TV for granting us permission to use this video clip.

 

Click the picture below to see the video clip

 

For PC

For Mac

   

 

If you have trouble seeing this video, and you use a PC, you can try viewing it from here: 

     http://wkow.madison.com/News/index.php?ID=15049

 

If you have trouble seeing this video, and you use a Mac, you can try viewing it from here: 

     http://wkow.madison.com/Video/shatteringglassdemo.wmv

 

  Some of the interview was not aired, so parts of the explanation are missing. Here are some things that you should know: 1) Tempered glass is made by rapidly cooling glass. Prince Rupert’s drops are also made by rapidly cooling glass and thus are tempered. 2) Rapidly cooling the glass causes the outside to become a solid while the inside is still a liquid. As the liquid on the inside cools, it would like to contract, but it cannot since the rigid outer shell will not allow this. Thus the interior of tempered glass is in tension while the surface is in compression. As a result, none of the atoms in tempered glass are happy. 3) Defects which penetrate the surface compression layer allow the compression and tension to become unbalanced, causing failure that propagates throughout the material. If after watching this video, you would like to see another cool video of Prince Rupert’s drops exploding, try this:

 

     http://youtube.com/watch?v=Pdy2_vi0FfM

 

 
 
 NSF press release on stable glasses:

 

We recently published an exciting paper in Science 315, 353 (2007).  The National Science Foundation featured this discovery on their website for a few days afterwards.  Use this link to view the NSF story:

 

 

     http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=108230&org=NSF

 
 

Wisconsin Society of Science Teachers webcast interview    about stable glasses:

 

On January 26, 2007, Dale Basler of the Wisconsin Society of Science  Teachers (WSST) interviewed Mark Ediger about his group's recent  research on stable glasses.  WSST does interviews for the use of high  school science teachers and others interested in science.  The 23 
minute interview can be downloaded at:

     http://www.wsst.org/labtable.asp?newsID=272#1