Anton Chekhov - Francis Bacon - Mark Williams TV - P W Anderson - Secret World of Your Rubbish TV - Strange Evidence TV -
Don’t tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass. Anton Chekhov
The glass helps to unify the picture. Francis Bacon, cited The Art of Francis Bacon
In 1850 the skills of the Birmingham glass-makers were rewarded with one of the biggest contracts of the century. Nearly a million square feet of glass in just ten weeks for Paxton’s great exhibition building in Hyde Park. As the editor of Punch put it: It was to be a Crystal Palace. Mark Williams, Industrial Revelations s1e6: Coining It, Discovery 2002
What is the nature of the transition between a fluid or regular solid and a glassy phase?
The deepest and most interesting unsolved problem in solid state theory is probably the theory of the nature of glass and the glass transition. P W Anderson, Through the Glass Lightly, 1995
Glass: it never loses its quality or purity no matter how many times it’s recycled. The average UK family uses 500 glass bottles and jars every year. And we manage to recycle 67% of it. Secret World of Your Rubbish s2e4, Channel 5 2020
Every year more than twenty-eight billion glass bottles and jars end up in the nation’s landfills. ibid.
Phantom Explosion: An old British pub is the scene of a shattering disturbance … A pint glass explodes … The strange nature of glass. Strange Evidence s1e5, 2017