Pyrex—a miracle of material science—hits the century mark


A few years ago I dropped my cell phone and, to my great surprise, broke the Corning® Gorilla® glass display.  This incident illustrates how far our expectations have come for what originally was an extremely fragile material.  Tough glass is a very recent development that still falls a bit short—even the newest Gorilla Glass 4 survives drops only 80% of the time according to Corning.  But give these material scientists a little more time.  They are sure to do even better at making glass truly unbreakable and far more flexible to boot.

Resistance to temperature, on the other hand, is now a given with glass, in particular the brand Pyrex® introduced in 1915 by Corning.  They quit manufacturing Pyrex in 1998 but you can still buy it, albeit in a cheaper form made from soda-lime rather than borosilicate.*

For the whole story, see Pyrex at 100 from the May 18th issue of Chemical and Engineering News (C&EN).

*(You are advised to read these shattering details from The American Ceramic Society on the consequences of going to the less-costly Pyrex.)

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