One of the best presentations of a rather complex set of operations to make a variety of glass products that we all take for granted. No annoying music or distractions with only a crip explanation of all the vital steps from mining to making the most sophisticated products like fiber optics and lenses
Agreed. Was a bit perplexed they didn't mention units at 20:27 when talking about optical fiber tensile strength of "100,000 per inch" (pascals maybe?). Still a cool doc.
Extremely well done documentary. Using glass as a data storage medium is a stroke of genius and could ensure that digitized motion pictures and sound would be archived for centuries. Almost totally immune to temperature and moisture contamination, this medium would be ideal for very long time storage and retrieval of historic film and sound recordings. Thanks for posting!
@@CawKee In the 1978 Superman the Kryptonians and The Fortress of Solitude used crystals to store data. I don't know if that was taken from an earlier appearance in the comics though.
Darn, you mean we won't get the rings like in Zardoz? My only question is if future people will be able to retrieve the info. That is, if we've gone from 5 inch floppies to 2TB microSD in a little more than a dog's lifetime or from film strips to layered glass in mine, how archaic will that be by the time of DS9? Will the warnings on nuke waste sites be as cryptic as hieroglyphics before it's safe to enter? With a growing trend to encouraged ignorance, how can we know our collected knowledge won't go the way of Alexandria?
My family was involved in the making of glass bottles & jars for many years. You might say we had glass in our blood. I was familiar with all but the last part of this video presentation. The glass fiber optical method I have seen before. However, the last part about data storage just blew me away. That is the new age of glass. Exciting times lay ahead. This is a great video.
In the 70s as an apprentice glazier I went on a tour of a float glass plant. It blew me away how big it was. When our class was visiting the furnace was in transition from clear to bronze glass. The current glass was unusable as it was somewhere in between proper clear or bronze. As soon as the glass was cut at the end of the line the huge sheets of glass fell down a chute to go back to the furnace. The sound of 10' x 12' sheets of glass falling, about one per second without pause, down a huge steel chute was INSANE.
The shortage of sand is primarily river sand with high degrees of angular fracture (i.e. sharp edges). Products like concrete need that angular feature for adhesion/strength. Sand dunes are formed from wind and grains of sand are missing angular fracture due to wind. It would have been good for the documentary to have focused on whether round sand is suitable for glass and fractured sand, such as demonstrated with crushing, would be better saved for construction. I did see where construction sand is a by-product of separating silica.
My job as an ISO assessor afforded me the opportunity to go to many glass plants; however, these were for glass fibers of all types. Only one was a bottle plant for medical applications. Most fascinating of operations. Great video.
Making the glass is an amazing process but the process of the machinery and equipment design and then the manufacture and install of the equipment might be even more amazing.
Very well done and I could never figure out how to make plate glass, never thought of floating it on tin. This should be standard course material in primary and secondary education.
I took two semesters of "Glass" in college many years ago. While we were required to blow at least one vessel, i.e. cup, vase, bowl etc., once i satisfied that requirement i focused on casting the glass into molds i made sand. I made some beautiful pieces of art which I sold. I wish i kept them 😊 A glass studio is amazing and i respect the artistry.
Fused quartz glass is very hard to work with. That is why they add softening impurities such as Boron and Potassium. This reduces the energy required to soften the material, as well as changing the glasses coefficient of expansion. You can create layers of glass with a gradual expansion rate, that can be manipulated to expand and contract, at the same rate as certain metals, at tremendous temperatures.
I work as an engineer at an optics manufacturer. We love working with FS. We often shape and polish high purity FS to nanometer precision for ultraviolet applications as well.
I had a few float glass factories as clients that I visited regularly. Watching float glass go from sand, etc. to cut stacked sheets was fascinating. Although there no aluminum was allowed as if an aluminum can or even just a pull tab it would leave fish eyes in the final product.
Extremely interesting, can this glass industry, be taught in a Vocational School? I’m sure after seeing this Documentary, some teachers and students would be interested in it. Where are these glass plants, in America, and elsewhere? I think glass is a great asset in all industries, and people love natural things, like glass, wood, stone. Best wishes and thanks for this Documentary. ♥️♥️🙏🙏🇺🇸🇺🇸
The liquid alloy that bonded to the lenses was sore AF if you got a piece behind the nail, this has to be put back into boiling water and recycled to use for blocking the next lens. Unfortunately now it's mainly finished lenses and surfacing is not as common now as it's mainly done by robots.
I really did enjoy this video. I didn’t know that it took so much material to make glass, but I learned something new and it’s very fascinating. The way these products are made.
Sir Alastair Pilkington (1920-1995), a British engineer and businessman, invented the float glass process in 1952 and announced it in 1959. Pilkington and his R&D team at the UK-based Pilkington Glass company developed the process to replace the traditional grinding and polishing method for making plate glass.
A very well put together video of the complete process of glass making. Interesting and informative. Only one complaint. The narrator, whether it be a real person or an AI is speaking with a British English accent, (basically perfect non-accented English that everyone can understand). Why then would the word alum-in-ium be pronounced as aloo-min-um?
I’m not sure if I’m remembering this properly, but back in the day, say, in the 20s and 30s (I’m basing this on the age of my house - 1936 - and some of the original stained, leaded glass windows) I thought I remember window glass was first molded into large, hollow cylinders somehow, the glass being the thickness of the window pane, then scored, heated and unfolded flat. It was interesting in that it had some swirls or imperfections on its surface, but was obviously clear enough to not notice them in daylight. When I had to fix some broken panes with today’s perfect flat glass, it just didn’t have that antique look that was so desirable in keeping that craftsman-like look that went so well with the rest of the house’s hardwood floors and trim, plaster work, and so on. Laf, they also leaked like crazy, not optimal during Wisconsin winters. We ended up replacing the windows with today’s perfectly constructed windows, but for some windows, I was able to move the original glass ‘inside’ the original wood windows, placing the modern units on the outside. Those couldn’t open of course, but at least from the inside I was able to maintain a few of those beautiful windows. But what a difference - no more draftiness, major improvement in noise isolation, easy to wash, etc. If anyone can correct me on my cylinder recollection, please correct me. A wonderful documentary, thank you.
You are correct about the cylinder method of making window pane glass in earlier times. I have seen a lot of this kind of glass in my career as a home renovator; the optical imperfections, air bubbles etc in these old windows give them a charm and a character quite lacking in modern float glass. However, if you wait around for a few centuries, you will see optical distortions appearing in today's windows. Glass is actually classified as a semi-viscous solid, so over time (a LONG time) gravity will cause a vertical pane to gradually thicken at the bottom as it thins at the top.
So many people are saying we should dump plastic and go glass for all our containers. After seeing this video I wonder if they realize the complexities of doing so, not to mention the cost of retooling and the change in the supply chain for these companies.
0:42 Sand, as it is found in nature, is NOT used in concrete. That particular sand is manufactured from rock. Sand in nature, is too rounded for use in concrete.
They got to that a bit later on, when they show the industrial sand-making process and sorting for various uses such as concrete, glass, paint, toothpaste, etc.
@@donaldcarey114 Seems like an instance of what normally happens vs the occasional edge cases. It is true that wind and water weathered sand is generally not fit for use in concrete, but there are bound to be exceptions to the general rule. My guess is that most construction sand suppliers source from a rock crushing and sifting operation, though you will also find the river-bed mine, etc. operations out there occasionally.
The lenses in mobile phones are much smaller than the camera lenses shown here. The quality of mobile phone images is astounding. It would be good to hear something about those lenses.
Modern cellphone cameras use injected-molded, plastic lenses with aspheric surfaces (think of a lens with ripples on it). They do this because light passes into the lens as a different angle as you travel away from the center. Making these aspheric surfaces can lower the overall lens count. The lenses are plastic injected-molded for mass production and weight savings.
Glass was first made in Persia thousands of years ago. The art and skills were a major source of economic strength for Palistine in the time of Christ, and the tomb from which he rose belonged to a wealthy glassmaker who later became a missionary Christian and founded the Christian colony of Glastonbury, England, Joseph of Haran/Athena.
Correction: Kapany was just one of the many physicist at the time experimenting with it. Years before, in 1920, Baird and Hansel already had patents for fiber optics, with Heinrich Lamm using them to transmit the first images in 1930, with Moeller and Van Heel improving transmission capabilities. About the only thing truly pioneering Kapany did was claim that he coined the term “fiber optics”. If you want a true “father” of contemporary fiber optics it’s Charles Kao’s whose work on fiber optics communication and data transmission in the 60’s made modern fiber optics as we know and use them possible. But it’s all based on a long history starting from Tyndall’s early work in the 19th century and has been steadily advanced by the great minds and hard work of many scientists for over 100 years.
Glass breaks too easily for data storage unless sealed in a device. Fused Quarts or, better yet, sapphire would be a better option. Man-made sapphire is now fairly easy to create. Currently they can make a 15" solid cube of sapphire relatively easily. It just takes a little time. Slice those into cubes and you will have truly unbreakable millennia-long storage.
Glass is not something that can be recycled endlessly. If you add coloring to it, you can never make it transparent again. If you add additional chemicals to it to get specific properties (such as in fiber optics), you can't extract them--and they can't even be reused for additional fiber optics because the chemicals are primarily in the core, not the body of the fiber. Pure, transparent glass can be recycled, yes, but as soon as there are any contaminants in it, you're done. It can only be used as a lower grade product that doesn't require any specific degree of purity.
No you're wrong, you're talking about completely different things. Glass can be recycled infinitely. Colored glass can be melted as colored glass again and again and again. if we're talking about "glass" itself, it definitely can be recycled forever. Besides, colored glass are sorted by color (brown-amber, green or transparent) in the recycling facilities. Glass is a material that you can recycle endlessly.
I so love human ingenuity. Look at that awesome machinery!
One of the best presentations of a rather complex set of operations to make a variety of glass products that we all take for granted. No annoying music or distractions with only a crip explanation of all the vital steps from mining to making the most sophisticated products like fiber optics and lenses
Agreed. Was a bit perplexed they didn't mention units at 20:27 when talking about optical fiber tensile strength of "100,000 per inch" (pascals maybe?). Still a cool doc.
It was an advertisement, but still informative
Aside from the fact that it is probably an almost perfect AI generated voice (certain words like fAHRenheit prove this), yes
@@roquapounds per square inch?
@@moiraatkinson Yeah, upon further research, lbs/inch^2 makes most sense.
Extremely well done documentary. Using glass as a data storage medium is a stroke of genius and could ensure that digitized motion pictures and sound would be archived for centuries. Almost totally immune to temperature and moisture contamination, this medium would be ideal for very long time storage and retrieval of historic film and sound recordings. Thanks for posting!
I know they said Hitachi developed this in the early 2000s but, as an intern at IBM in 1983, I worked with a research scientist on exactly this.
@@CawKee In the 1978 Superman the Kryptonians and The Fortress of Solitude used crystals to store data. I don't know if that was taken from an earlier appearance in the comics though.
Darn, you mean we won't get the rings like in Zardoz? My only question is if future people will be able to retrieve the info. That is, if we've gone from 5 inch floppies to 2TB microSD in a little more than a dog's lifetime or from film strips to layered glass in mine, how archaic will that be by the time of DS9? Will the warnings on nuke waste sites be as cryptic as hieroglyphics before it's safe to enter? With a growing trend to encouraged ignorance, how can we know our collected knowledge won't go the way of Alexandria?
It is amazing!! Smart and unique invention.
😊.God bless.❤
My family was involved in the making of glass bottles & jars for many years. You might say we had glass in our blood. I was familiar with all but the last part of this video presentation. The glass fiber optical method I have seen before. However, the last part about data storage just blew me away. That is the new age of glass. Exciting times lay ahead. This is a great video.
Oh Jesus !
Did not expected it is so complicated and extreemly refined
In the 70s as an apprentice glazier I went on a tour of a float glass plant. It blew me away how big it was. When our class was visiting the furnace was in transition from clear to bronze glass. The current glass was unusable as it was somewhere in between proper clear or bronze. As soon as the glass was cut at the end of the line the huge sheets of glass fell down a chute to go back to the furnace. The sound of 10' x 12' sheets of glass falling, about one per second without pause, down a huge steel chute was INSANE.
What a show about float and blown glass! Bravo on this production.
@@CawKee I read somewhere that the idea to float glass on molten tin came about on seeing how soap bubble float on water. How true? No idea.
What a great video
This is what I used to do as a surfacing technician, haven't seen these machines in 20 years or so, ah the good old days
I just got blown away..., Wonderful🙏
thank you so much for your science, generosity, and kindness
Glass, one of the greatest inventions ever.
The shortage of sand is primarily river sand with high degrees of angular fracture (i.e. sharp edges). Products like concrete need that angular feature for adhesion/strength. Sand dunes are formed from wind and grains of sand are missing angular fracture due to wind. It would have been good for the documentary to have focused on whether round sand is suitable for glass and fractured sand, such as demonstrated with crushing, would be better saved for construction. I did see where construction sand is a by-product of separating silica.
Superb Educational Video ' Thank You.
A Great video. Thanks and illuminating on the latest usage of glass. Glass memory? Wow!
My job as an ISO assessor afforded me the opportunity to go to many glass plants; however, these were for glass fibers of all types. Only one was a bottle plant for medical applications. Most fascinating of operations. Great video.
Fascinating!
Thank you for this wonderful presentation
Excellent stuff ! ... 👍
Making the glass is an amazing process but the process of the machinery and equipment design and then the manufacture and install of the equipment might be even more amazing.
Thank you very much for this video best glass making video I have seen 😀...
absolutely sick video, thanks Lord Gizmo
I love the blue factory, beautiful
Silicon is the most abundant material that makes up the Earth.That's why it's so widely mined
Wow! Amazing video!👏
Wonderful video.Thanks
So informative and beautifully presented.
Excellent work ! Thank you.
This video was great! I want to know how was glass made BEFORE all of this technology?
Marvelous! Fascinating!
Absolutely superb documentary on every level! Thank you!
Extremely interesting video.
Very wonderful documentary 😊
Extraordinary documentary
Very well done and I could never figure out how to make plate glass, never thought of floating it on tin. This should be standard course material in primary and secondary education.
Thank You So Much For Sharing Your Excellent Beautiful Very Interesting Video And Audio 👍👍😀❤️❤️
Fascinating
I took two semesters of "Glass" in college many years ago. While we were required to blow at least one vessel, i.e. cup, vase, bowl etc., once i satisfied that requirement i focused on casting the glass into molds i made sand. I made some beautiful pieces of art which I sold. I wish i kept them 😊 A glass studio is amazing and i respect the artistry.
Amazing Documentary, Highly Recommend....
This was really very interesting.
Fused quartz glass is very hard to work with. That is why they add softening impurities such as Boron and Potassium. This reduces the energy required to soften the material, as well as changing the glasses coefficient of expansion. You can create layers of glass with a gradual expansion rate, that can be manipulated to expand and contract, at the same rate as certain metals, at tremendous temperatures.
I work as an engineer at an optics manufacturer. We love working with FS. We often shape and polish high purity FS to nanometer precision for ultraviolet applications as well.
Really appreciate it and enjoyed it thoroughly well done I've learned so much from this article
Amazing glass of endless applications including its transformation into our secondary eyes. 🤿
This is the best presentation even though I am strange for this glass making process. Now I am interested . How can you help me ???
Wonderful video. Thanks for sharing!💚
I had a few float glass factories as clients that I visited regularly. Watching float glass go from sand, etc. to cut stacked sheets was fascinating. Although there no aluminum was allowed as if an aluminum can or even just a pull tab it would leave fish eyes in the final product.
The manufacture of glass: very interesting and well produced.
Never complaining over the prices of lens 🙏🏿
Fantástico
I very much enjoyed your video and I gave it a Thumbs Up
Super interesting.
Wow. That was a mind blowing documentary. Thank you.
no. They're lying that sand supply is going down. Nothing more than propaganda to keep using plastic.
Wonderful use of glass indeed! Awesome tech 👍
LORD GIZMO!!!
that's a documentary 🙌
no its not. They're lying that sand supply is going down. Nothing more than propaganda to keep using plastic.
Extremely interesting, can this glass industry, be taught in a Vocational School? I’m sure after seeing this Documentary, some teachers and students would be interested in it. Where are these glass plants, in America, and elsewhere? I think glass is a great asset in all industries, and people love natural things, like glass, wood, stone. Best wishes and thanks for this Documentary. ♥️♥️🙏🙏🇺🇸🇺🇸
.........absolutely BLEW MY MIND with the storing data on glass. the science of it made zero sense to me but awesome none the less
Interesting stuff for sure, thanks for the upload! 👍👍
The liquid alloy that bonded to the lenses was sore AF if you got a piece behind the nail, this has to be put back into boiling water and recycled to use for blocking the next lens. Unfortunately now it's mainly finished lenses and surfacing is not as common now as it's mainly done by robots.
Learn something new every day. Thank You!!!!
no. They're lying that sand supply is going down. Nothing more than propaganda to keep using plastic.
Abrogation of lenses! Master class stuff right here! Nerds will know..:)
Where are these machines made?
That is what amazed me the most!! (those machines)😳
I really did enjoy this video. I didn’t know that it took so much material to make glass, but I learned something new and it’s very fascinating. The way these products are made.
Cool.
Nice.
Great documentary 3
Sir Alastair Pilkington (1920-1995), a British engineer and businessman, invented the float glass process in 1952 and announced it in 1959. Pilkington and his R&D team at the UK-based Pilkington Glass company developed the process to replace the traditional grinding and polishing method for making plate glass.
Subscribed!
Interesting. But l stiIl don't understand how parting lines are avoided in products ultimately formed in split molds.
A very well put together video of the complete process of glass making. Interesting and informative. Only one complaint. The narrator, whether it be a real person or an AI is speaking with a British English accent, (basically perfect non-accented English that everyone can understand). Why then would the word alum-in-ium be pronounced as aloo-min-um?
I’m not sure if I’m remembering this properly, but back in the day, say, in the 20s and 30s (I’m basing this on the age of my house - 1936 - and some of the original stained, leaded glass windows) I thought I remember window glass was first molded into large, hollow cylinders somehow, the glass being the thickness of the window pane, then scored, heated and unfolded flat. It was interesting in that it had some swirls or imperfections on its surface, but was obviously clear enough to not notice them in daylight.
When I had to fix some broken panes with today’s perfect flat glass, it just didn’t have that antique look that was so desirable in keeping that craftsman-like look that went so well with the rest of the house’s hardwood floors and trim, plaster work, and so on. Laf, they also leaked like crazy, not optimal during Wisconsin winters. We ended up replacing the windows with today’s perfectly constructed windows, but for some windows, I was able to move the original glass ‘inside’ the original wood windows, placing the modern units on the outside. Those couldn’t open of course, but at least from the inside I was able to maintain a few of those beautiful windows. But what a difference - no more draftiness, major improvement in noise isolation, easy to wash, etc.
If anyone can correct me on my cylinder recollection, please correct me. A wonderful documentary, thank you.
You are correct about the cylinder method of making window pane glass in earlier times. I have seen a lot of this kind of glass in my career as a home renovator; the optical imperfections, air bubbles etc in these old windows give them a charm and a character quite lacking in modern float glass. However, if you wait around for a few centuries, you will see optical distortions appearing in today's windows. Glass is actually classified as a semi-viscous solid, so over time (a LONG time) gravity will cause a vertical pane to gradually thicken at the bottom as it thins at the top.
Strangely full circle, in that ancient Sumerians made coneiforms in clay, to now, with etches deep within clear clay!
So many people are saying we should dump plastic and go glass for all our containers. After seeing this video I wonder if they realize the complexities of doing so, not to mention the cost of retooling and the change in the supply chain for these companies.
I came here to learn how glass is made, not a lecture on how we're running out of sand 😂🤦♀️
What metals contaminate the sand? Fe or REE's like Sc and Y?
Obviously some ferromagnetic metals, given the magnetic sorting station in the helical slide washer/separator.
We are Cardinal's customer. Someday I hope to visit their float line.
How is the fiberglass flexible and not brittle?
Different kind of glass
Fiberglass is mostly Epoxy Resin.
0:42 Sand, as it is found in nature, is NOT used in concrete. That particular sand is manufactured from rock. Sand in nature, is too rounded for use in concrete.
They got to that a bit later on, when they show the industrial sand-making process and sorting for various uses such as concrete, glass, paint, toothpaste, etc.
Not true, sand mined from river beds is prized for use in concrete - there is a huge environmental impact from this in many places.
@@donaldcarey114 I thought the same thing until I watched a documentary of how sand is made.
@@donaldcarey114 Seems like an instance of what normally happens vs the occasional edge cases. It is true that wind and water weathered sand is generally not fit for use in concrete, but there are bound to be exceptions to the general rule. My guess is that most construction sand suppliers source from a rock crushing and sifting operation, though you will also find the river-bed mine, etc. operations out there occasionally.
The lenses in mobile phones are much smaller than the camera lenses shown here. The quality of mobile phone images is astounding. It would be good to hear something about those lenses.
Modern cellphone cameras use injected-molded, plastic lenses with aspheric surfaces (think of a lens with ripples on it). They do this because light passes into the lens as a different angle as you travel away from the center. Making these aspheric surfaces can lower the overall lens count. The lenses are plastic injected-molded for mass production and weight savings.
Glass is Wonderful in manufacturing glass ware, ( such as Scharum's, Bong's & Water pipes, for smoking CANNABIS, AMEN 🙏 🙏 🙏! 😊
Ah yes, a big thank you to the experts who said that plastic was better than glass. Chocking the planet was non recyclable waste.
Return to glass.
Glass was first made in Persia thousands of years ago. The art and skills were a major source of economic strength for Palistine in the time of Christ, and the tomb from which he rose belonged to a wealthy glassmaker who later became a missionary Christian and founded the Christian colony of Glastonbury, England, Joseph of Haran/Athena.
subscribed
Ok 🆗🆗🆗 OK ok 👌👌👌👍👍👍❤❤❤
I can't wait to store all my pictures and information into a piece of glass 😅
ＧｏｏｄＭｏｒｎｉｎｇ， Yokohama！
A lot of the glass we use is very happy, due to being blown professionally
That's amazing. There's a lot of automation in there, how long before they don't employ any humans?
Wow!!! Something that we use everyday that seems so common goes thru such a journey to be born!!!
Make more
17:55.. 200 year's.. yeah, yeah, yeah.
whats on the archives ? stored?
make one on silicon wafers!!
Correction: Kapany was just one of the many physicist at the time experimenting with it. Years before, in 1920, Baird and Hansel already had patents for fiber optics, with Heinrich Lamm using them to transmit the first images in 1930, with Moeller and Van Heel improving transmission capabilities.
About the only thing truly pioneering Kapany did was claim that he coined the term “fiber optics”.
If you want a true “father” of contemporary fiber optics it’s Charles Kao’s whose work on fiber optics communication and data transmission in the 60’s made modern fiber optics as we know and use them possible.
But it’s all based on a long history starting from Tyndall’s early work in the 19th century and has been steadily advanced by the great minds and hard work of many scientists for over 100 years.
Nickle Sulfide inclusions are what destroys tmpered float glass. No stainless tools are allowed anywhere near the raw materials prior to floating.
Glass breaks too easily for data storage unless sealed in a device. Fused Quarts or, better yet, sapphire would be a better option. Man-made sapphire is now fairly easy to create. Currently they can make a 15" solid cube of sapphire relatively easily. It just takes a little time. Slice those into cubes and you will have truly unbreakable millennia-long storage.
According to ‘some’ experts? Really? Which experts don’t think this?
50 years ago ! 2001 a space odyssey Stanley shows Dave pulling clear HALs glass memory slabs from data hall shutting him down
Glass is not something that can be recycled endlessly. If you add coloring to it, you can never make it transparent again. If you add additional chemicals to it to get specific properties (such as in fiber optics), you can't extract them--and they can't even be reused for additional fiber optics because the chemicals are primarily in the core, not the body of the fiber. Pure, transparent glass can be recycled, yes, but as soon as there are any contaminants in it, you're done. It can only be used as a lower grade product that doesn't require any specific degree of purity.
So you would agree with the statement that glass can be recycled infinitely as long as it is recycled into a colored lower grade glass?
Same problems recycling plastics too
There’s a reason the glass is recycled by color. Putz
No you're wrong, you're talking about completely different things. Glass can be recycled infinitely. Colored glass can be melted as colored glass again and again and again. if we're talking about "glass" itself, it definitely can be recycled forever.
Besides, colored glass are sorted by color (brown-amber, green or transparent) in the recycling facilities.
Glass is a material that you can recycle endlessly.
No one should give two fucks about the big recycle lie!
👍👍
Sand is not running low. We have deserts of it. What they are saying is running low is certain types of sand.