A city a story photo weekly contest #4: Temple, Entry #3 Stained glass X sciencepic

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Here is my submission to @aaronli 's A city a story weekly contest.

This was a picture of a stained-glass I took with my iphone5 last week in my friend's wedding. Stained glass were signatures of Catholic churches, stories from the Bibles were recreated on the glasses.

But what came up my mind when I saw those stained glass was the debate of whether glasses were a solid or liquid, some even commented glasses were supercooled liquid!!

The origin of those claims actually came from Church stained glasses, because people noticed that in old churches, the thickness of the glasses were actually significantly more thick compare to the upper portion of the same piece. They speculated that the glasses were gradually floating down (at a very very slow pace). Some explained as glasses were amorphous solid, which it chemical molecular structure is not as organized as a crystal, but not as freely floating like a liquid. This disorganized phase allow certain degree of "flowing" (slowly) and later on finally settle into a more stable formation.

However, no solid conclusions were made, and many suspected that it might be the technology of glass making that were responsible for such observation~

source:
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/fact-fiction-glass-liquid/
http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/General/Glass/glass.html