Atomic trigger shatters mystery of how glass deforms
Friday, October 17, 2014 - 13:30
in Physics & Chemistry
A new study has cracked one mystery of glass to shed light on the mechanism that triggers its deformation before shattering. Glass hangs in a metastable state in which the energy of the system is higher than the lowest-energy state the system could assume, a crystalline state. But its state is stable enough at room temperature to last a human lifetime.