Glass broke by itself in unusual way.

Archeron

Hi all
Apologies if this is an idiotic question.

Is there any reason why a glass would break by itself that dont involve sound or temperature? I had a weird one this week, a tall solid pint glass was sitting beside me on the table (empty). I heard an almight crack, but everything looked fine. When I picked up the glass, the entire base was broken off the glass itself, and the fracture is perfectly smooth.

The glass was washed in cold water (cold tap, so more room temperature) and then a room temperature drink put in. It was sitting in the living room which was quite cool as well. I finished the drink and a few minutes later, it just cracked. There was no loud noise in the room either, just the TV on at low enough level.

I've had a look around online and some people mention temerature and noise, but I dont think either of these was a factor.

Any idea what could have caused this?
Cheers

krd

Yeah. They can break spontaneously.

If you hold a sheet of polaroid over a glass - you can see the tension in the glass.

A glass is made - when molten glass becomes solid - the tension throughout the glass is not even. Most of the time, it won't make a difference. If you warm it up and cool it down - the tension changes - if part of the glass is pushed beyond its elastic limit it will snap and shatter.

This is a reason, you never put fine, hand blown crystal near a dishwasher.

When I was child, my mother showed me and my brothers an amazing trick. She took a wine bottle. Boiled a kettle and poured the boiling water over the bottle. Nothing happened to the bottle..............Then she ran it under the cold tap and it shattered.

clappyhappy

Liveline had a piece on this about 12/18 mths ago,people saying their glass tables,vases,glasses,one person mentioned a waterford crystal bowl, all just cracking/shattering into bits. Result was that if the glass has been scraped by a diamond even just a little it will crack/shatter when a room cools down. Most people said it happened at nightime. Was interesting stuff though!!!

Archeron

Nice one, thanks for the replies!