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Go with the flow
So many of you are inspired to write by our piece on whether glass is a liquid or a solid because old windows are thicker at the bottom, that we thought we should give you some more information.
‘Its atomic structure is liquid-like (amorphous) in that it has no long-range order, unlike crystalline materials which are made of atoms lined up in an orderly fashion,’ says David Allsop, at Qinetiq.
‘To see the effect described, you’d need to make the windows out of jelly, or the gooey “smashing orangey bit in the middle” of a jaffa cake,’ points out Jeremy Kimmons, at Robert Dyas.
Simon Brockbank, at United Utilities, claims that anyone who wants to know more (more?) can find it on most of the web’s urban myth sites, or at www.glassnotes.com/WindowPanes.html.
He knows, because he found it a few weeks ago, when researching the exciting news that a colleague had told him: apparently £2 coins where the Queen is wearing a necklace are worth up to £15! Or maybe, as he found out, not.
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