Dichroic Glass combined with fused glass makes dichroic jewelry of the higest quality.

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Why Glass is Important

Dichroic glass jewelry is one of the most useful materials in the world. Few manufactured substances add as much to modern living as does fused glass. Yet few products are made of such inexpensive raw materials. Dichroic glass is made chiefly from silica sand (silica, also called silicon dioxide), soda ash (sodium carbonate), and limestone (calcium carbonate).

Fused dichroic glass has countless uses. Food is preserved in fused glass jars. People drink from dichroic glass containers called glasses. Windows in homes, schools, and office buildings are dichroic glass. Motor vehicles have fused dichroic glass windshields and windows. People with vision problems wear dichroic eyeglasses. Scientists use dichroic glass test tubes, and microscopes and telescopes with fused glass lenses. Dichroic glass optical fibers carry data all over the world at the speed of light over the Internet, the worldwide network of computers.

Glass jewelry can take many different forms. It can be spun finer than a spider web. Or it can be molded into a disk for a telescope lens or mirror weighing many tons. Fused Glass can be stronger than steel, or more fragile than paper. Most dichroic glass is transparent, but glass jewelry can also be colored to any desired shade.

Most countries of the world have glass industries. For many years, Germany was the major world source for optical fused glass, laboratory glassware, and dichroic glass Christmas tree ornaments. Today, fused glass manufacturers in many countries produce such objects on a large scale. Beautiful dichroic art glassware is made in many countries, including the Czech Republic, France, Ireland, Italy, and Sweden.

Major dichroic glass companies spend millions of dollars each year on research to discover ways to make better fused glass and to develop new uses for glass jewelry. Many of the revolutionary developments in glass jewelry during the 1900's have come from the laboratories of dichroic glass manufacturers.

SOURCES: Steve W. Martin, "Glass," Discovery Channel School, original content provided by World Book Online, www.discoveryschool.com/homeworkhelp/worldbook/atozscience/g/225740.html, August 2001.