The video explores the fascinating world of Prince Rupert's Drops, a special type of glass with unique properties. When molten glass is dropped into water, it forms these drops, creating a fascinating balance of compressive and tensile stress. Despite their glass composition, these drops are incredibly resilient, able to withstand hammer blows, and even bullets, yet they shatter spectacularly when nicked at their tails. The video starts by creating excitement through a live demonstration and then transitions into a deeper exploration of glass's material properties.

Viewers get a unique insight into the glass-blowing artistry and science as the video documents the efforts to encase a Prince Rupert's Drop in molten glass without it melting. An artist named Cal Breed, along with his team, delves into the meticulous process of working with glass, demonstrating their deep understanding of the material's behavior, which combines art, craftsmanship, and scientific principles. The video captures various attempts, highlighting the teamwork and challenges faced in their creative endeavors.

Main takeaways from the video:

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Key Vocabularies and Common Phrases:

1. compressive stress [kəmˈprɛsɪv strɛs] - (noun) - Stress that results in a material compacting and reducing in size. - Synonyms: (compression, pressure, compacting)

Now, when that happens, this really interesting material science thing happens where the outside is in extremely high compressive stress.

2. tensile stress [ˈtɛnsaɪl strɛs] - (noun) - Stress that results in a material being stretched or elongated. - Synonyms: (tension, pulling, stretching)

...but the inside of this drop is in extremely high tensile stress.

3. epoxy resin [ɪˈpɒksi ˈrɛzɪn] - (noun) - A strong adhesive used in various applications for bonding substances together. - Synonyms: (adhesive, glue, binder)

And so what I did is I cast a prince Rupert's drop in epoxy resin.

4. molten glass [ˈmoʊltən ɡlæs] - (noun) - Glass that has been heated to a liquid or near-liquid state. - Synonyms: (liquid glass, melted glass, fluid glass)

Couldn't you do it with glass? To which I replied, what? What? Think about it. A prince Rupert's drop is glass. Putting glass inside molten glass has to change things, right?

5. viscosity [vɪsˈkɑsəti] - (noun) - The measure of a fluid’s resistance to flow; describes its thickness. - Synonyms: (thickness, consistency, stickiness)

Lets make a graph of viscosity versus temperature

6. phase transition [feɪz trænˈzɪʃən] - (noun) - A change in the state of matter from one phase to another, such as solid to liquid. - Synonyms: (state change, phase change, transformation)

If you have solid ice and you heat it up to turn it into liquid water, that phase transition happens very quickly in an extremely small temperature band

7. thermal shock [ˈθɜrməl ʃɒk] - (noun) - Stress caused to a material due to rapid change in temperature. - Synonyms: (heat stress, thermal stress, temperature shock)

... pour molten glass into it because the temperature difference will cause it to explode due to thermal stresses.

8. annealer [əˈniːlər] - (noun) - A device used to heat up and then slowly cool glass to relieve internal stress. - Synonyms: (furnace, kiln, oven)

Glass artists have a way of dealing with this. It's called an annealer.

9. ladle [ˈleɪdəl] - (noun) - A large, long-handled spoon used for transferring and serving liquids. - Synonyms: (scoop, dipper, spoon)

He has a big ladle that he's gonna get molten glass in, and it's very dangerous.

10. rubbery plateau [ˈrʌbəri plæˈtoʊ] - (noun) - A phase in the phase transition graph where material exhibits rubber-like properties. - Synonyms: (elastic stage, pliable phase, flexible plateau)

Then suddenly it levels off in a rubbery state. This is known as the rubbery plateau.

MOLTEN GLASS VS Prince Rupert's Drop - Smarter Every Day 285

This is called a prince Rupert's drop, and it's created by dripping molten glass down into water. Now, when that happens, this really interesting material science thing happens where the outside is in extremely high compressive stress, but the inside of this drop is in extremely high tensile stress. What that means is you can hit the tip here with a hammer, and it won't break. It's glass, but it doesn't break. You can even hit it with a bullet. But if you even nick the tail, it explodes. I get really excited when I do this. It explodes.

That little moment where it explodes, I wanted to capture that. And so what I did is I cast a prince Rupert's drop in epoxy resin, and then I shattered it, and I tried to capture the exact millisecond of the explosion. Now, a lot of people watch this video and they're like, oh, well, you did it wrong. You didn't use the right epoxy. You didn't vacuum off the gases correctly. But there was one person that saw this and asked a very different question, and that was Cal Breed.

Cal's question was, should you be using epoxy at all? Couldn't you do it with glass? To which I replied, what? A prince Rupert's drop is glass. Putting glass inside molten glass has to change things, right? It's a very difficult problem. So today on smarter every day, we're going to go get into the mind of an artist who understands the material properties of glass far more than any engineer I know. And we're going to see if we can put a prince Rupert's drop in molten glass and shatter it.

This is Cal. He's the owner here at Orbix Hot Glass. And what we're gonna do today is we're gonna have fun. And I have fun by making weird stuff. And I've got a great team of awesome people that like making weird stuff with me. We've made clear Prince Rupert drops. I want the ice blue one. So we're gonna pick up some ice blue glass. We buy colored glasses and then we can break off a chunk of it, put it in here, heat it up to 1000 degrees.

We park it in the garage. This is our garage. It's hot enough to keep the glass from cracking, but it's not hot enough that it's going to slump. We're going to pick that up on the end of a rod here in a minute. Heat it up. Preheated a little bit more up in that top corner. What do you mean, up in there? Yeah, up in the top left corner there. That's the hotter, that's got to be the hotter area. Yeah.

Then we'll bring it out and put it into here, which is closer to 2000 degrees. This is what we use when we're making anything throughout the process of just reheating. You can't just make it in one gather and it's done. We're going to heat up that blue, make it into little pieces so that we have multiple tries because the colored glass, for some reason doesn't want to be made into Prince Rupert drops. The clear ones we can do in a small bucket, they can hit the bottom and they're fine. But with the colored ones, if they hit the bottom, they typically break.

Jill, for some reason, has a knack. We figured out that she has a higher percentage rate of getting touch for the coat drops. I guess so, yes. What's the secret? I'm not, I'm not sure. She's just lucky. You just know what's up. I'm just able to do it somehow. Yeah. I have a higher percentage rate of success.

We're already learning that these artists have a feel for glass in a way that an engineer doesn't. They understand it more intimately. You heard Jill there, who's an apprentice under Cal, talking about her abilities. She can't really articulate it; she just feels it. So when I think of this, this is just clear glass. When I see this, it's colored glass. But these artists see temperatures and gooeyness at certain temperatures. They have an intimate understanding of how this stuff works.

Today we're going to be working with Jill you met there. We've got Eric, Lily, and Bodhi too. These are people who all work under Cal, learning just like Cal did. Cal has apprenticed all over the country under some huge names in the glass blowing world. It's cool to see how this knowledge is passed down through exploration. Cal explains what he and his wife Christy were thinking when they started the studio.

When we built the shop, we wanted to make sure it was like a mad scientist kind of place. So you come up with ideas, and let's try to make it similar to what we're doing today. It's a process of learning how to explore, how to learn, and then you have your ideas and try it. We now know that glass behaves differently depending on the color. I asked Cal to explain some of these colors.

So this is like an ice blue; you can see how beautiful that blue is. These are very dense bars of colored glass. If you use emerald, it's so dense, it almost looks black. Right? Okay. That's why I chose this ice blue. I love this color anyhow, but it's more transparent.

A little later, I explored these colors more with Eric, who explained the physical properties and the color itself is not only a function of the chemicals inside the glass, but how you heat/cool it. Copper, ruby; this is a very interesting color. This will go completely clear when you're working on it. Once you put it in the oven, it will turn blood red. If too hot, sometimes it will go clear. It's bizarre.

To make the individual Prince Rupert's drops, they need to break up the blue glass they were warming. They attach a thin metal rod, using molten glass as glue on the tip, which grabs the blue piece, put it in the glory hole to heat it further, making it malleable. Then they form bulbs that can be broken off interestingly. So you just broke that off with a mechanical vibration. Every piece they make, they have to get it off the blowpipe or punty rod.

A weakness is created to shock typically with temperature, putting a little water on it or a cold tool and then tapping it. Engineers and scientists think about materials a certain way. They've got aluminum and steel, pull/push these things, they have stress strain diagrams. Steel, if you pull, it will yield and break. Aluminum does similarly but differently. Glass is different; it's brittle. Artists think about that break point. Sometimes avoid it, sometimes create it.

More to this: from liquid to solid glass. You've seen a graph like this: the phase diagram for water. We can boil water from liquid into a gas. Freeze into ice. Move into the solid part. This is how I always understood matter to work. You can change solid, liquid, gas based on pressure and temperature. True for water, but not all materials. Water has a first-order transition.

Let's graph viscosity versus temperature. Solid ice heats up to liquid water, phase transition happens quickly in a tiny temperature band. Why water is a first-order transition. Glass, however, is a second-order transition where phase change happens over a broad temperature band. That graph looks linear, but it doesn't. Cold solid glass exists here in the glassy region. Heating, glass transition begins, viscosity changes drastically. Levels off in a rubbery state, known as the rubbery plateau.

More heat added, drop off rubbery plateau, flows in what's called rubbery flow region. More heat, glass flows like liquidity. Look at this curve. Glass artists use this curve for glass behavior. Where would you want to work the glass? On the rubbery plateau, you'd get large temperature range with the same physical properties. As a glass artist, work has a certain temperature, cools off, work until back over to glass transition region. Then stick back in the furnace, move it back down rotary, back and forth, controlling viscosity by managing glass temperature.

They don't need these graphs; they know it in their soul. Engineers think about stress strain curves, glass breaking. Glass artist manages with temperature. Riding up/down curves, just doing it. I want you to think about this curve; that's how I have to understand it. First step for team is making the Prince Rupert's drops. They did it. It worked?

So now they have this beautiful Prince Rupert's drop. How do to get it in molten glass? Transparent, whatever. Hold glass in. Needs to be glass. Cal explained he can't pour molten glass into a glass off the shelf due to explosion from thermal stresses. Cal selected to create this glass while preparing everything else. The process is amazing. What we're about to do, can't do alone, need multiple artists doing parts. True? Yeah, need a team.

Everyone has a great understanding of material. Learning more. Try it, okay. First step making a drinking glass is gathering liquid flow rate region glass onto a blowpipe. Blowpipe cool, heat from glass makes gases expand, does work for him. Used ideal gas law to blow up glass. Amazing. Gather another time.

At this point, a sphere of glass. Straighten edges, make cylinder, flatten end, watch. He's thinking about temperature, thickness, all at once. Stop. Eric, fuel heat, drop it a little. Heat shallow, stretch it from shoulder. Cold shoulder, brace tongs, push hotter part. They're different parts of flow regime, working them simultaneously.

Rotating because droopy part wants to droop; flatten, tighten up with shallow heat. After paddle/gases, another rod on side, break off cup, turn around, make cylinder inside out. While doing this, Lily's putting molten glass on kiln shelf. Glass on shelf won't thermally shock. Can I look? Yes. That looks awesome.

Now finished, Cal sets up temps and timing. Big ladle, molten glass in, dangerous. Got out, high-speed camera ready; watch. Ready? Ready. Whoa, snap tail quicker, glass heats too fast, slumped. Cal snaps before tail heats. Complicated, hang with me. Prince Rupert drop solid up here, cold; molten glass hot. Heat transfer influences drop more, runs the curve, melts quickly.

Time thing with heat capacity, heat time difference. Blue/green colors heat quickly. Lesson learned, team remade cup, ready. Whoa. So used cold water to snap. Things happening with Bodhi, get shot. Take time. Pretty. Look, bubble coming up. Trapped air? Must've trapped air, comes to top, disappear with torch. Happy? Yeah.

Fracture went into glass, seen on high-speed. Tried again, deep blue, like Jill said, blue softer, didn't rupture. Failures. Cal, wanting square, placed on punty, back in glory hole. Focus back, colder. Making square, awesome. Tester. If screwing up, want to learn and screw up all ways. So squishing starts. Learn from missups.

Try again, teamwork better, choreography tighter, calmer. Ready, Eric? Yeah. Awesome. Cal, what happened? Blew on face, keep watching, will heal. Last healed looks like cloud. Seeing glass flowing? Heat healing, just closing. Amazing. Cal wanted square, uses graphite mold. Brought modular graphite, Cal adapted it, clever way.

Cut practice, shear moves, mold works. Mold good, made quickly, learned what worked. Looks good. Awesome. Got it? Yay. Do you like? Looks so cool. Got it. Boom. Many failures, select few by captain, annealed, cold shop worked final form. Cold about patience, grit, diamond tools, lapidary wheel, reciprolap. Final form shown as imagined.

Artists blow surface finish perfect, cast elephant skin needs smoothing. Cold shop small error or nip in hot shop = many hours fixing. Engraver careful until final surface art as imagined. Eleven years ago, emailed Cal Breed. Engineer to artist. With Prince Rupert’s drop, deeper understanding gained from creator’s mind. Art made, shown.

Piece is lovely. Folds, shatter, reassembly. Feelings stirred, mechanics, material. Gorgeous, Cal’s vision realized, polariscope reveals stresses, nose pushing made rainbow pattern. Looks cosmic, supersonic shockwaves. Two learnings: glass transition, failure’s unique role. Cal: balance of failure/success in piece creation.

Great piece close to balance. Enter with fear, once fail, game on. Learn to fail well. Piece takes hours, incomplete stops learning. Discover hidden intuition, failure digs deep. We learn on mistakes, move forward knowing more. Master glasswork demands patient, precise craft. Success story in blue drop, casting shows dedication.

Wanting Prince Rupert drop? Cal refuses to sell but website is live with art. Priced not to sell, personal significance. Explores science, art, learning meld. Calbreed.com for work. Supporting Cal in masterful blends, Polarization filter available for stunning display. Close with eleven-year-old email: dream of collaboration fulfilled. Patrons support learning, thank-yous noted. Destin, embracing learning keeps getting smarter.

Science, Technology, Materials, Artistry, Learning, Teamwork, Smartereveryday