The development history of glass

The world's earliest glass makers were the ancient Egyptians. The emergence and use of glass has a history of more than 4,000 years in human life. Small glass beads have been unearthed from the ruins of Mesopotamia and ancient Egypt 4,000 years ago.
Legend has it that more than 3,000 years ago, a European Phoenician merchant ship was loaded with the crystal mineral "natural soda" and sailed on the Belous River on the Mediterranean coast. Due to the low tide of the sea, the merchant ship ran aground, so the crew members boarded the beach one after another. Some crew members also carried a large pot, moved firewood, and used a few pieces of "natural soda" as a support for the large pot to cook on the beach. As the crew finished their meal, the tide began to rise. When they were about to pack up and board the ship to continue sailing, someone suddenly shouted: "Come and look, everyone, there are some crystal bright and shining things on the sand under the pot!" The crew brought these shining things to Study it carefully on board. They found that these shiny things had some quartz sand and melted natural soda stuck to them. It turns out that these shiny things are the natural soda they used to make pot supports when cooking. Under the action of flames, they reacted chemically with the quartz sand on the beach. This was the earliest glass. Later, the Phoenicians combined quartz sand and natural soda, and then melted it in a special furnace to make glass balls, which made the Phoenicians make a fortune. Around the 4th century, the ancient Romans began to apply glass to doors and windows. By 1291, Italian glass manufacturing technology had become very developed. In this way, Italian glass craftsmen were sent to an isolated island to produce glass. They were not allowed to leave the island during their lives.
In the 12th century AD, commercial glass appeared and began to become an industrial material.
In 1688, a man named Nave invented the process of making large pieces of glass. From then on, glass became a common item. In the 18th century, optical glass was produced to meet the needs of telescopes.
In 1874, Belgium first produced flat glass.
In 1906, the United States produced a flat glass loading machine. Since then, with the industrialization and scale of glass production, glass with various uses and properties has come out one after another. In modern times, glass has become an important material in daily life, production and science and technology.
Glass: This is Sanskrit pronunciation, not what is called glass today. It is also called Po Li, and the new translation is Po Zhijia, Suo Po Zhijia, Sai Bo Zhijia, etc., which is equivalent to the water essence (crystal) of this place.
Translated into Chinese as crystal, it has four colors: purple, white, red, and green.
"Xuan Ying Yinyin" says: "Po Li, the name of a treasure from the Western Kingdom, is this cloud water jade, or cloud white pearl."
"The Great Treatise" says: "This treasure came out of the cave in the mountain. After a thousand years, the ice turned into a Pearl."
"Huiyuan Yinyi" says this treasure: "The shape is like water essence, the light and translucency are more exquisite than water essence, and there are four different colors of yellow, green, purple and white."
"Compendium of Materia Medica" written by Li Shizhen in the Ming Dynasty: "Glass, this name is Po Li. It is also the name of the country of Po Li. It is as clear as water and as strong as jade, so it is called Shuiyu. It has the same name as Shuijing."
For hundreds of years, people have believed that glass is green and cannot be changed. Later it was discovered that the green color came from a small amount of iron in the raw materials. The divalent iron compound made the glass appear green. After adding manganese dioxide, the original divalent iron turns into trivalent iron, which appears yellow, while tetravalent manganese is reduced to trivalent manganese, which appears purple. Optically, yellow and purple can complement each other to a certain extent. When mixed together to form white light, the glass will not have a color cast. However, after a few years, the trivalent manganese will continue to be oxidized by the air, and the yellow color will gradually increase, so the window glass of those ancient houses will be slightly yellow.