The space shuttle has triple paned, optical-quality windows. Thirty-seven window panes in eleven different sizes and shapes are produced for each Orbiter. The %%fused%% %%silica%% outer panes of the forward windshields are designed to withstand high atmosphere reentry temperatures. The inner

The mighty glowing columns that stand like pillars in a ghostly cathedral...     -Anonymous At the beginning of the 20th century, there was no way to mass-produce flat glass. Although glass cylinders could be drawn by machine, they had to be opened and flattened by hand. What was needed was a way to form sheets of glass directly and continuously. In 1901, Belgian glassmaker Emile Fourcault invented a machine that drew a glass sheet five stories straight up from a vat of molten glass.

Glass breaks. But if it’s strengthened by thermal tempering, it breaks less easily and more safely. By 1920, architects and European car designers wanted more and more tempered glass—and in large sheets. Glassmakers could successfully temper only one sheet in ten.

I contrived heretofore, a perspective by Reflexion.       —Sir Isaac Newton, c. 1668 The refracting telescope gave astronomers their first real glimpse of the heavens. Then, it began to frustrate them. At higher magnifications, the instrument’s glass lenses produced distorted images. Pioneering British scientist Isaac Newton solved the problem by using a %%metal%% mirror to %%gather%% light. He built his reflecting telescope in 1668. The more astronomers saw, the more they wanted to see.

Glass manufacturers had spent centuries learning how to make flat glass. Now, they wanted to bend it into complex shapes—without marring its surface. Anything that touched the surface of the hot glass could leave a mark.

The most significant advance in glass production in over 2,000 years...      -American Society of Mechanical Engineers, 1983 Michael Owens, a self-taught American inventor, propelled the glass industry into the mechanical age. In 1903, he unveiled the world’s first completely automatic glass-forming machine—a machine for making bottles. Owens was determined to eliminate the hand delivery of hot glass to bottle machines. He was convinced that a machine could suck thick, molten glass from a rotating pot directly into its molds.

They make glass. By day and night, the fires burn on … and bid the sand let in the light.      -Carl Sandburg, In Reckless Ecstasy , 1904. To see the unseeable: the quest is unending. But lenses and prisms are only as good as their glass. Optical-quality glass must be flawless. Even tiny flecks, streaks, or bubbles can cause distortion. With World War II approaching, optical glass was in great demand, and making it was a slow, crude process. The ingredients were put in ceramic pots, melted, stirred, then cooled. Only about 10 percent of the glass was usable.

I have heard a ray of the sun laugh and cough and sing!     -Alexander Graham Bell It was a bright idea: use sunlight to transmit the human voice. In 1880, American innovator Alexander Graham Bell tried it, using a thin, flexible mirror to reflect a light beam onto a distant receiver. His voice caused the mirror—and the reflected light—to vibrate. The receiver detected the light’s vibrations and turned them back into sound. Bell’s photophone worked, but it wasn’t practical. Rain, smoke—anything in the atmosphere—scattered the unprotected light signal.

The world began to realize that so far it had only toyed with glass. Now a brand new material was born.     -Walter Kioulehn, Odyssey of the 41 Glassmakers , 1959 By the mid-1800s, there were still only two kinds of optical glass: soda-lime crown glass and lead-containing flint glass. Opticians doubted they’d ever have more choices. Then a German glass chemist made a crucial discovery. In 1884, Otto Schott proved he could precisely alter the optical properties of glass by changing its chemical makeup. The variations in glass, it now seemed, could be endless.

Edouard Benedictus, a set and costume designer for a French theater, wanted to make glass safer. He was disturbed by reports of people being disfigured by broken windshield glass during automobile accidents. How could windshields be made less dangerous?