Abstract
TWENTY-ONE years ago was a strenuous period for British technologists, and in no field were the problems more urgent than in connexion with the production of glass for laboratory, optical and many other purposes ; thus the necessity of team-work brought the Society of Glass Technology into existence, and its coming-of-age has recently been celebrated. A series of lectures on “Glass in Modern Life”, arranged by the Society in this connexion, recalled some of the veritable struggles of the period of the Great War, and the more ordered progress of this ‘key industry’ under the subsequent measure of protection accorded to it. Prof. W. E. S. Turner mentioned that the value of the production of the chemical and scientific glassware industries has risen from £129,000 in 1924 to £250,000 in 1937, and is doubtless even higher today. Undoubtedly, the activities of the Society have contributed in no small degree to the possibility of this expansion, and the same is true of Prof. Turner himself and the Glass Technology Department at the University of Sheffield. The term ‘glass’ covers a very wide variety of chemical substances ; when we find it being employed in these days (inter alia) for nuts and bolts, woven fabrics (of course for highly specialized purposes), and bricks for building, we may wonder whether the golden age of glass production is only just beginning. The list of lecturers also included Mr. Raymond McGrath and Mr. Bernard P. Dudding, who dealt with the applications of glass in their special fields of architecture and illuminating engineering respectively; and Dr. W. M. Hampton contributed a lecture on new developments in the field of optical glass. Although the production of optical glass may be a very minor activity from the business point of view, the experience gained in efforts to improve it has been invaluable in its. lessons for the larger-scale operations.
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Recent Advances in Glass Technology. Nature 141, 154 (1938). https://doi.org/10.1038/141154c0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/141154c0