40 Fun Facts About Glass

Which animal gives its name to the toughened Corning glass that protected the first iPhone's screen?

Gorilla Glass got its name only in 2008, months after the iPhone launched. Steve Jobs had dropped the planned plastic screen after his prototype scratched in his pocket.

Which American founding father is credited with inventing both bifocals and the glass armonica?

Benjamin Franklin, by one account, had his lenses cut in half to follow French speakers at court. His armonica, a row of glass bowls spun on a spindle, dates from 1761.

Which event fused New Mexico's desert floor into a green glass called trinitite?

An atomic test, code-named Trinity, melted the desert sand on 16 July 1945. Most of the glass was bulldozed and buried in 1953, and taking any from the site is now illegal.

A popular but false legend says the champagne coupe was moulded on the breast of which French queen?

Marie Antoinette is one of several women the tale names, but the dates rule her out. The shallow coupe was designed in England in 1663, almost a century before she was born.

Which soft drink's curvy 1915 glass bottle was designed to be recognised by touch, even in the dark?

Coca-Cola wanted a bottle people would know even when it was broken. The winning designer at Indiana's Root Glass Company copied the ribbed shape of a cocoa pod from an encyclopedia picture.

Which black volcanic glass did Stone Age toolmakers chip into razor-sharp blades and arrowheads?

Obsidian forms when lava cools too quickly for crystals to grow, so it fractures into very sharp edges. Surgeons have even tested it for scalpel blades.

Which radioactive element makes antique yellow-green Vaseline glass glow under ultraviolet light?

Uranium was added to the glass mix as a colouring agent, giving a pale yellowish-green that reminded people of petroleum jelly. Under a UV lamp it fluoresces bright green.

Which rock and roll star, killed in a 1959 plane crash, made horn-rimmed glasses his trademark?

Buddy Holly swapped his old frames for horn-rims on the advice of the Everly Brothers. Teenagers across America were soon asking for the same style.

Which piece of eyewear does Planters mascot Mr. Peanut wear along with a top hat and cane?

A monocle and top hat were added by an artist to dress the character up. The original peanut figure was drawn by a schoolboy, Antonio Gentile, for a 1916 design contest.

Which band fronted by Debbie Harry topped the US and UK charts with the disco-tinged Heart of Glass?

Blondie nicknamed it their disco song long before it became a hit. Debbie Harry and guitarist Chris Stein had written an early, slower version back in 1974–75.

Which kitchenware brand, launched in 1915, put heat-resistant borosilicate glass into home ovens?

Pyrex borosilicate glass barely expands when heated, so it survives an oven without cracking and suits laboratory flasks too. Many later kitchen pieces switched to tempered soda-lime glass.

Which French château's Hall of Mirrors hosted the 1919 treaty signing that ended World War I?

Versailles was picked on purpose by French premier Georges Clemenceau. The German Empire had been proclaimed in the same mirrored gallery in 1871, during the Franco-Prussian War.

Which sunglasses brand began in the 1930s with anti-glare aviator lenses for US military pilots?

Ray-Ban grew out of a request from Army Air Corps flier John Macready, who wanted lenses to cut the dazzle of high-altitude skies. Bausch & Lomb's 1936 prototype was called Anti-Glare.

Which tall, narrow stemmed glass is shaped to stop champagne's bubbles from escaping too quickly?

A flute's inward taper leaves little surface for the fizz to escape from. Holding it by the stem also keeps a warm hand away from the wine.

Which gin and vermouth cocktail lends its name to the classic stemmed glass with a cone-shaped bowl?

Martini glasses are properly just cocktail glasses, used for any drink served without ice. The long stem lets the drinker hold the glass without warming what is inside.

Which actor returns as detective Benoit Blanc in the 2022 Netflix mystery Glass Onion?

Daniel Craig first played Benoit Blanc in Knives Out in 2019. The sequel sends him to a tech billionaire's private Greek island, where a murder-mystery game is under way.

Which director completed the trilogy begun by Unbreakable and Split with the 2019 thriller Glass?

M. Night Shyamalan set most of it in a psychiatric hospital, where the heroes and villains of both earlier films are locked up together. Samuel L. Jackson plays the title mastermind.

To which lagoon island were Venice's glassmakers moved by law in 1291, partly because of fire risk?

Murano also let Venice guard its trade secrets, since the craftsmen and their recipes were all kept in one place. Glass is still made on the island today.

Which vast iron and glass hall rose in London's Hyde Park to house the Great Exhibition of 1851?

Crystal Palace was designed by Joseph Paxton, a head gardener who had spent years experimenting with greenhouses. Moved to south London in 1854, it burned down in 1936.

Which spirit lends its name to the balloon glass, also called a snifter, that is cupped in the palm?

Brandy is warmed by the drinker's hand through the wide bowl, while the narrow rim traps the rising aroma. Strong beers such as imperial stout are often served in the same glass.

Which metal's oxide makes cut-glass decanters heavier and more sparkling than ordinary glassware?

Lead raises both the density of the glass and the way it bends light, which gives the sparkle. It can also leach into food and drink, so safer substitutes are now common.

Which effect lets a loud note shatter a wine glass by matching the pitch it naturally rings at?

Resonance makes each push of the sound wave arrive in step with the glass's own vibration, so the wobble grows until it cracks. Doing it reliably takes a loudspeaker and a carefully chosen glass.

Which American designer, a famous jeweller's son, made stained-glass lamps an Art Nouveau hallmark?

Louis Comfort Tiffany was the son of the founder of Tiffany & Co. Several of his studio's best-known shades, including a prize-winning dragonfly lamp, were the work of designer Clara Driscoll.

Which architect designed the glass pyramid built as the Louvre entrance under President Mitterrand?

I. M. Pei built it from 673 glass panes, although a stubborn myth insists there are exactly 666. An official brochure printed during construction gave the wrong number and started the rumour.

Which instrument did spectacle-maker Hans Lipperhey try to patent in the Netherlands in 1608?

The telescope patent was refused because rival spectacle-makers claimed the same idea, though the Dutch government paid him well for copies. Galileo soon built an improved version.

Which playwright modelled the fragile Laura Wingfield of The Glass Menagerie on a real-life sister?

Tennessee Williams called it a memory play and filled it with his own family, including a version of his mother. Its 1944 premiere lifted him from obscurity to fame.

Which compound, the main ingredient of quartz and beach sand, makes up most ordinary window glass?

Silicon dioxide, or silica, needs fierce heat to melt on its own. Glassmakers add soda as a flux, which brings the melting temperature down to something a furnace can manage.

Which safety glass in car side windows breaks into small blunt granules instead of jagged shards?

Tempered panes have their surfaces locked in compression during manufacture, so a break releases the stress and the whole sheet crumbles. Windscreens use a different, layered glass.

Which country produced the first wearable eyeglasses, hailed as a new art in a friar's 1306 sermon?

Italy's first pairs were probably made in Pisa or Florence around 1290. Venice, with its fine glass, quickly became a centre of the new trade.

Which lens shape is used in glasses to correct short-sightedness?

Concave lenses, thinner in the middle than at the edges, appeared for short sight in the mid-15th century, long after the first reading glasses. Johannes Kepler gave the first correct account of why they work in 1604.

Which rum cocktail made famous by Pat O'Brien's bar in New Orleans shares its name with a tall, curvy glass?

Hurricane is said to be Pat O'Brien's 1940s answer to a glut of unpopular rum that distributors made him buy before he could get better-selling spirits. The glass is shaped like a hurricane lamp.

What are the two side arms of a pair of glasses, which rest over the ears, properly called?

Temples that hook over the ears were not invented until the 1700s, some four centuries after the first spectacles, which simply perched on the nose.

Which studio made Child of Glass, a 1978 TV film about a boy who meets a ghost girl in Louisiana?

Disney first aired it on NBC in May 1978 as part of its long-running Sunday anthology series. The story comes from Richard Peck's novel The Ghost Belonged to Me.

Which tadpole-shaped glass bead survives a hammer blow on its head yet explodes if its tail is cut?

Prince Rupert's drop is made by dripping molten glass into cold water, which locks huge stresses inside. It is named after the royal who brought examples to England in 1660.

On a bath of which molten metal does glass float in the modern process for making flat window panes?

Tin is denser than glass and stays calm at furnace temperatures, so the molten sheet spreads out perfectly flat on top of it. Pilkington pioneered the method in 1950s England.

What are the glassy tubes nicknamed fossilised lightning, formed where a bolt strikes sandy ground?

Fulgurites take their name from fulgur, the Latin for lightning. The strike melts the grains in an instant, leaving hollow, branching tubes that trace the path of the current.

Which glass sculptor, blinded in one eye in a 1976 crash, made Fiori di Como for the Bellagio lobby?

Dale Chihuly kept blowing glass himself until a 1979 bodysurfing injury wrecked his shoulder. Since then he has hired others to do the blowing, acting more as a choreographer.

Which Roman cameo-glass treasure in the British Museum was smashed by a drunken visitor in 1845?

The Portland Vase was pieced back together the same year by a museum restorer. The man who broke it gave a false name and was later identified as a missing Dublin student.

Which Dutch eye doctor gave his name to the chart of shrinking letter rows he introduced in 1862?

Herman Snellen drew his chart letters on a five-by-five grid. The largest one, on the top row, often stands for 20/200 vision, the level counted as legally blind in the US.

Which architect built the Glass House in New Canaan, Connecticut, as his own weekend retreat?

Philip Johnson used it until his death in 2005. Its see-through walls were inspired by Mies van der Rohe's Farnsworth House, which he had shown as a model in a 1947 museum exhibition.