"Mr. Jaggers" lugburzman[at]yahoo[dot]com wrote in message
...
mazorj wrote:

....
Entropy will win in the end for all things, but before the universe
settles down to an amorphous mass, a few other things will happen,
like all those clear sheets of supercooled liquid (a.k.a. glass)
puddling under my windows. That's going to let in the elements, which
can't be good for coin storage regardless of which brand of flips you
use.

I'll be happy if my specimens survive without visible damage long
enough for my children to appreciate what I've passed on to them. After
that, it's their problem!

It's only a matter of time until some loudmouth swings through here and
goes ad hominem on you for claiming that glass is a supercooled liquid.

Meanwhile, here's a disquisition on the topic:

http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physic...ass/glass.html

James the Vitreous

Wow. Thanks for the great link. It nicely explained the science, debunked
the "flowing glass" myth, discouraged the misnomer "supercooled liquid," but
rightfully demurred on the unanswerable question of whether glass is a
liquid or a solid. It was far superior to most of the links to
documentation that pass for "proof" on Usenet.

Shoulda checked first - I got the "supercooled liquid" explanation in high
school physics class in the 1960s... taught by a priest. Which probably
explains his reference to church glass as proof of the phenomenon. In
fairness, he was pretty sharp on science (he taught our chemistry class as
well) and our knowledge of sub-macroscopic properties of materials was less
sophisticated in the 1960s than it is today, so this presumably was a common
misperception even in scientific and engineering circles at the time.

I once participated in a project that involved the effects of "super-cooled
drizzle drops". From which my main take-away was that "Super-Cool Drizzle
Drops" would be a great name for a candy. :-D