Ooooooohhh... ages.

besides; glass is made out of loads of different minerals ie sand. This means its consistancy is very erratic. Maybe the bonds between all the different particles are just not that strong. If you look at glass closely you will see that its a mish mash of different molecules. The glass doesn't 'melt', it probably has a closer relation to dust or sand dudes.

Ok so that sums this topic up. Glass is not a liquid based on the definition of a liquid! It might me something other than a solid but we know that its not a liquid. Sorry i asked such a hard question i thought the answer would be very straight forward. The answers are very interesting tho.

actually, today glass is fairly consistant. It is made up of melted silicon oxide (i think generally the dioxide variety). Pure glass is definately a pure substace. The amorphous state of glass does not have to do with any sort of mish mash of chemicals. Rather it has to do with the properties of one chemical (the silicon oxide) and its innability to make a strong latice structure.

 

Of course, i am not a glass-amatician, so i could be wrong, but i think i am correct on this one.

Typical glass is silicon oxides in a lattice, each silicon bonded to four oxygens. The bond angles between the oxygen and silicon vary alot which means there's no repeating cells like you get in crystals. 'Soda lime' glass is the most common and includes some Na2O and CaO, you can make glass from pure SiO2 but it's more expensive. You can also get boron oxide, germanium oxide, phosphate and organic polymer glasses I think. Aluminium can be added to silicon dioxide and replaces every second silicon atom in the matrix. Lead oxides are added and are what makes sparkly 'crystal' glass sparkle. Pyrex is made by adding boron. These are all pure substances, but different forms of glass.

glass glass glass GLASS glass Glass GlaSs GLASSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

 

ill have a pint of glass please

 

mmmmmm

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

glass

this is getting nowhere

In a fiber optic cable (most now isn`t in fact glass, but a polymer now) as Dudde said, there will be little to no signal loss through malformation of the conduit, certainly not at the frequencies we use at the moment, get towards the TeraHertz region and there will then be limitations regarding angle of curvature and so forth. but frequency compensators (pitch shifters) and booster amps (used today) will be more than fine to deal with these discrepancies

 

this is refering to his post in #68, and no I don`t have a time machine but something`s playing up here with this server or my puter, not established which yet!

A pint of glass sounds oddly refreshing.

 

 

Fibre optic cables are made of glass, aren't they? How are they so flexible?

well, that all depends on what you mean by "flexible." Glass itself is fairly flexible. If you have a skinny full legnth mirror, or just a fairly large peice of glass availible check it out. Push on it some, you will be suprized how well it bends -- just don't break it.

 

Of course, that being said, it is not flexible like we think of metal wires as flexible. Fiber optic cable is rather brittle. I had a buddy that worked with it, he broke some just by stepping on it. And you can't really have it kink and still expect it to work, like you can with copper wire.

 

So while fiber optic cable is somewhat flexible, it isn't as flexible as standard wires.

and because it isn't as flexible, it can transmit data at HUGELY greater capacities than copper wire:

 

Fiber cables are skinny enough to where they are flexible and can be bent almost double, but you have to do it slowly and you'll never get that sucker straight again O_O

and because it isn't as flexible, it can transmit data at HUGELY greater capacities than copper wire:

 

perhaps i don't quite understand how fiber optics work then, how does flexibility effect data trasmition?

it doesn't really, I was just in the mood for bolding something, that's all

 

but it's true

it doesn't really...but it's true

 

Huh? Either flexibility effects transmition or it doesn't. If it does, how does it?

 

(not trying to be an ass, i really am curious)

"but it's true" was referring to the super-fied capabilities of the fiber to carry data over the copper wire

 

copper is still more forgiving and more flexible. Flexibility in no way (that I can think of ) affects the transmission of data, since the boost comes from the way it's carried, not the flexibility

 

 

EDIT:

many apologies for the confusion

ah cool, yeah i already knew about the data transmission due to total internal reflection, and i thought this was the only way the fiber optic cables really worked. I cannot think of a way in which flexibility effects theoretical limits to data transmision either. Cool thanks.

 

many apologies for the confusion

 

No worries, just thought i had missed something that is all

bends in wire at high frequencies causes DB loss, and the higher the freq or the sharper the bend, the greater the loss. and it will also create what`s known as "Spurious Emissions" generated by the harmonic resonace of the media shape and angles (copper wire in this case).

that's a given

 

I was just explaining that the flexibility had no influence...