depends on how the glass is made, it can be quite durable, theoretically reaching 17 gigapascals.
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500TB in silica glass about the size of CD.
- Thread starter KD5ZXG
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But there are other silicates at that point that do the same job better and cheaper. But yes.
cybereality
[H]F Junkie
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We're talking about billions of years, who cares? We'll all be dead and gone (not just us, human civilization), the sun would have supernova'd, everything will be dust (including this glass CD).
Nafensoriel
Limp Gawd
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People are misunderstanding what glass is. Glass is a type of ceramic. There are plenty of clear ceramics that function like glass and are optically superior or indistinguishable from window glass.
Spinel or YAG come to mind. More expensive of course but if you need clarity and strength... Hell, there is a metallic glass floating around that gives steel a run for its money.
If you don't care about absolute optical clarity glass is stunningly strong to anything a human hand could do to it. The glass used in this case is actually a glass fiber rather than the strange solid/liquid of your window glass.
@Cyberreality
Your timescale is a bit off... we have quite some time before this planet is rendered uninhabitable by our sun(probably closer to 2 billion years). Will life change every 100k years or so? Of course... but basic mathematics won't.
This type of thing is more to ensure that wherever humans go we can at least remember where we came from. If our fate is to die in this star system... well that's just how the cookie crumbles. It doesn't mean we shouldn't try to strive for more.
Sorry, just that I have my nerderecton raging. But our sun doesn't have enough mass to go supernova. At least at this point. But, in 2 billion years, when we enter Andromeda's sweet dusty regions, there's no telling what will happen. We could end up as a throbbing pulsar or even a gigantic black hole. Or blasted all over by high energy particles. I can see why Elon musk wants to get there.
Yes but your point was that glass is all brittle, it is not.
N4CR
Supreme [H]ardness
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Un-doped YAG yes but the rest usually isn't as the doped stuff can have some pretty colours in large boules. Rarest one I've held was cerium doped, just the end bit was ~20k usd haha, fluro yellowy colour with the slightest light on it, thanks to one of the FLIR lads
Have also spent a lot of time with extremely rare and pure variants of optical synthetic diamond (can't say which for reasons), the refraction and clarity with straight cut shapes in either direction is uncanny. You never see diamond that way typically.
As you said, there is a hell of a lot of stuff that is transparent like glass that isn't even remotely related to it. These discs look like the highest density diffraction grating I've ever seen. Must be spectacular to see in person!
Well thats possible then. But remember this same system of science and its models said only 2 weeks to end covid 2 years ago and yet.... science.
But I feel ya