Is Glass a Solid or a Liquid? Poll

I would say its solid - just because its crystalline lattice structure gives it slow viscosity like say lead doesn't make it a liquid. Fluidity is not the sole provence of liquids - solids even can exhibit superfluidity (frictionless viscosity in the case of solid, super chilled < 4 Kelvin, super pure Helium, less than 1 part per billion He3 isotope).

Thats the point gday, glass has no lattice, its amorphous. Its real name is actually "fused silica"
If it were cryptocrystalline, it would have a micro tetrahedral lattice that opens to a structural hexagonal lattice, but it doesnt.
As it is, the coordinated tetrahedra of si to O is entirely random. thus it doesnt really have a melting point as a property, but a range of "softening". In nature the forms include obsidian, fulgurite, tektites, meteoric glass, and shocked quartz.
Optical properties and diffraction properties are at odds with the various crystalline quartz or other silica rich compounds.

Metallic glasses are now
being created now by doping metal melts with rare earths to hasten cooling and actually causing a glass form of the metal to form. Some neat properties are non magnetic iron with an enhanced hardness.

I have been told by my current chemistry teacher that glass is a amorphous solid. Which is a super cooled liquid. But my 8th grade teacher told me that glass is not an amorphous solid do to research he found. So I think that glass is a solid.

I stand beautifully corrected!

your 8th grade teacher is wrong science wis, and your chemistry teacher and farmer man are right.

The key words here are "amorphous", "crystallisation" and "viscosity".

Glass, at room temperature, behaves like a solid but its chemical and physical condition is such that it has in fact never gone through the phase change between liquid and solid which defines the distinction between the two states.

You could argue that it is matter in a fourth state, neither solid liquid or gaseous, but glassy.

(Or fifth state if you include plasma, but it doesnt matter )

The black stone obsidian (arrow heads, hand axes etc) is described as volcanic glass. Also the nasty little sharp bits in pyroclastic flows (Mt St Helens) are described as glass. The geologists define them as glass because the have no crystalline structure.

Hello, I am prof. George from the University of waterloo and i am here to answer your questions. From my science experiments and many hours of research, it has come to my attension about which statement to beleive.
1. Glass is a liquid
2. Glass is a solid

It may be a lot more detailed than just that, but the bottom line is that glass is A SOLID. Glass is an amorphous solid with some liquid characteristics. So i started my own researched and found out that some metals are amorphous as well. In a couple million years a peice of metal will be thicker at the bottom because of the particles constantly moving. So if glass really is a liquid, doe sthat mean that metal is too? and all other solids out there? There are MANY solids that can be categorized under glass or an amorphous solid, therefore if that is what you are saying, Everything can be considered a liquid. But it is not.



One the one hand, glass doesn not undergo a phase change when going from its "solid" state to a state where it flows. Without changing phases, did you change states? On the other hand, you can brittle fracture cold glass and that is clearly a material failure mode of solids. If you wanted to categorize it for the purpose of predicting its properties, I would go with solid.

My research concludes that GLASS IS A SOLID. Not a liquid of any sort. A SOLID.

Thank you.
Prof. George

Is Cherry still teachin up there?

I'd define it as a solid used to store and serve liquids, but Farmerman has described it with such unerring.... precision that I am lost for words. 'Cryptocrystalline'?? I needs me a drink. Please don't start arguing about ice when I'm gone.

Im new to the a2k forums too but i belive that glass is a liquid becouse I've heard from a certain source that a bubble in a glass will circumnavigate it in 1 age. This is ofcourse impossible and would depend on how wide the glass was, but... well there you have it. Thats my opinion. Hope it helps.

Hey Einher - your handle looks familiar - are you a former abuzzer?

I believe you're thinking of Einherjar.

I am indeed, brain must have slipped a few cogs...