What is glass?
Every day we meet and use glass products. Glass has an irreplaceable role in our lives thanks to its wide utilization, properties and possibilities of processing.
Glass was invented about 3000 BC in Egypt. At the beginning it had many impurities and it was used for making decorations (rods and beads). Real glass subjects appeared only in the period 1600 BC in this region. The knowledge of glass making was spread step by step from the Middle and Near East to Europe. In the Roman era glassmaking went through huge flowering. It was spread from the Apennine peninsula, Egypt and coast of nowadays Syria to other parts of the Roman Empire - Gaul, Germania and Hispania. After the decline of ancient Rome the glass making in Europe survived in a limited extent. Only the 13th century brought new flourishing of European glass making.
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What is ceramics?
The chemical element mostly represented in the earths crust is silicium, the oxide of which in his pure form as silica and namely in the appearance of its compounds - silicates - has a share of nearly 60 % in the surface layer of our planet. The favourable mechanical properties of natural silicate materials especially strength, hardness, heat resistance and their esthetic appearance too, have been noticed even by primeval man. There were purposefully used by him first of all in the rough state for tools and and devices preparation and later, based on occasional inventions, technological processes for novel "synthetic" silicate matters were compiled coming out from heat treatment. To begin with, the clay mass firing has been mastered for ceramics production, considerable later the fusion and forming of glass, brandnew the further silicate materials production as binders, composites and so on.
