Introduction to Glass Science

Glass technologists are fascinated by glass; explora­ tion as well as application of glass is expanding and the influx of documentation is bewildering. There were about 200 papers on just semi conduction in glasses in 1970 and one has to scan about 200 papers a month to sense the pulse of glass science. Yet there are many in industry and education in science or engineering who require or wish to have coher­ ent, comprehensive and contemporary information on this exciting material "glass. " The Tutorial Symposium offered as an Introduction to Glass Science in Alfred represents an earnest attempt to ful­ fill this need. It has been designed to provide both broad and technical instruction for participants and readers who are not specialists. Glass is not only a material but a condition of matter: the vitreous state. The topic, there­ fore, is introduced by a careful consideration of the nature of glass, or the vitreous state. The universality of the vitreous state is now generally recognized: not just a few, but very many structures can be obtained without appreciable crystallization. There is no restricted family of struc­ tures characteristic of glass formation: as long as crys­ tallization is avoided, every liquid will solidify to a non­ crystalline sUbstance. Structural analysis in each case is now to be postulated and has become increasingly successful. The Alfred "Introduction to Glass Science" offers a repre­ sentative overview of methods and results.