Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Prince Rupert Drops

This is soooo cool. If you are going to do this, make sure that you don't injure yourself with flying shards of glass, and leave dangerous glass dust where it can be breathed in some time in the next couple of centuries.

This first video is from CMOG (Corning Museum of Glass) and really shows how they are made and how strong the bulb end is.


This video is also from CMOG - but really illustrates just how amazingly it blows up. Breaking the tail results in a shock wave of cracks that propagate towards the head of the drop at the astonishing spead of 5.5 Mach, or about 4,200 mph.


Isn't glass just the coolest stuff ever?

9 comments:

  1. Gail D.B.4:06 p.m.

    Totally cool. I love your sense of adventure.

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  2. Wow, that is really cool... does that apply to all glass? I immediately thought...hmmm.. can I make frit powder in a jar that way! LOL...

    Darlene

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  3. @Darlene - you know - I had the same thought ... . I think it would work for all soft glass.

    I really don't know about Boro.

    Just be careful not to breath in glass dust - or have it contaminate an area where someone else might breath it in later.

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  4. Anonymous7:20 p.m.

    That was amazing!

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  5. That is very cool!

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  6. Very cool - thanks for posting the videos!
    And I thought the same as Darlene ... easy way to make small frit!

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  7. SO cool!
    thanks for sharing it.

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  8. Anonymous10:45 p.m.

    Boro will not work unfortunately. No matter what thickness. The reason for this is because it has a low stress index, where as soft glass or soda glass has a high stress index.

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  9. Here is a video by Smarter Every Day - exploring the same thing ...

    http://youtu.be/xe-f4gokRBs

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