Glass (Categorising)

[ChelseaTarqa1]

Me and my colleagues are in disagreement over a question that appears on a paper. The question is-To which category does glass belong? A) Natural B)Metals C)Ceramics or D) Plastics. Although I am aware that Sand and Silica are natural products and glass can be created when lightening strikes. I dont think glass is a natural as I dont think there is a natural category as such.I think it is a ceramic, Please could you tell me if I am correct or am way off the mark as usual. Thanks in anticipation,

 

[IRstuff]

Well, the FDA has trouble with the concept of "Natural" as applied to food labelling, so why should glass be any different? "Natural" is a label that people apply to suit their needs.

Your list of categories are not mutually exclusive, so right off the bat, your labels are ambiguous. There are natural metals, plastics, etc.

The only obvious conclusions is that glass is NOT a metal, since it's a poor thermal and electrical conductor, and it's NOT a "plastic" under the common definition that a plastic is composed of "organic" molecules, although, obviously, there are many plastics that don't have components that come from "organisms" and so wouldn't fit a narrower definition of what "organic" molecule means.

Glass can be considered a ceramic, because it fits the broad category of a material that is formed by heating and subsequent cooling, and is considered to be an amorphous ceramic. Likewise, one could claim it's "natural" because it's composed of naturally occuring materials, which is often a definition that slides by FDA scrutiny.

TTFN

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[ChelseaTarqa1]

Thanks IRstuff for your reply. It appears there is no difinitive answer.

Thanks again
Robert

 

[EdStainless]

Not if you stick with those labels.
More accurate labels would be based on the nature of the compounds (organic/inorganic) and the bonds between them.
This does get messy, after all there are organic semiconductors used in LEDs, and we normally don't think of combinations like this.

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