#corning
An assembly of Corning’s iconic Pyrex lab glassware (top, courtesy of Corning). Pyrex is used to ensure railway signal lantern against failure in rain and snow (bottom, C&EN Archives, 1943).
Happy 100th birthday, Pyrex! This week, we’re celebrating with a story that chronicles the history of the iconic glassware. From our archives, here’s one account of how it all began:
The glasses now known under the trademark “Pyrex” had their origin in an effort to make impossible the failure of the glass globe in a lighted railroad signal lantern exposed to rain or snow. The glass first developed had low thermal expansion and was entirely satisfactory for the purpose. Its freak composition, however, resulted in slow but complete solubility in water and its field of application was therefore limited. Only after the traditional seven years of constant research in Corning Glass Works laboratories was a glass highly resistant both to chemical attack and to thermal shock ready for the market. Even then years of unprofitable manufacture followed, caused by difficulties incident to the high temperatures required for melting and working the new material.
Evidence is plentiful that the chief beneficiary of such a development is the average citizen of the United States. The majority of American housewives today are using clean, transparent Pyrex ware in oven and on top of stove, for coffee brewing and for baby nursing. On the basis of the National Bureau of Standards reports on its superiority the laboratory man long ago substituted it for imported glassware. Hundreds of miles of Pyrex pipe line are giving service with quantities of other Pyrex equipment in chemical manufacturing plants.
Action on the American Chemical Front: Development of Pyrex Glassware
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Yoooo
It’s like three months late but here’s our pride performance! We weren’t perfect, but we did our best and everyone seemed to appreciate it. It’s the thought that counts, right?
