The Trouble With Pyrex

Pyrex was the first glass cookware, introduced in 1915 by the Corning Glass Company. The breakthrough was borosilicate glass, which doesn't break when it's heated. Pyrex is still sold in stores by Corelle, but there's a steady stream of consumers who check out thrift and antique shops for old Pyrex cookware, with good reason.  

Clear glass Pyrex cookware is practically an American icon. With its pleasing heft and remarkable resilience, these famous clear pans have been essential when cooking biscuits, casseroles, and pies since 1915. There’s only one problem. A few years ago, the pans started exploding when they got too hot—which is ironic since Pyrex glass was specifically designed to be heat resistant. Some blamed a change in the glass formula and flocked to thrift stores to buy older models. Others cried hoax. Everyone agrees that exploding glass is bad.

The rate of shattering glass is low, considering the number of Pyrex pans in circulation, but the US Consumer Product Safety Commission has received 850 reports of shattering glassware in the past seven years. Read about the chemistry of glassware and the history of Pyrex manufacture at Gizmodo. When you read it, you'll learn the important difference between the two measuring cups shown above.

(Image credit: Picofluidicist)


Comments (4)

Newest 4
Newest 4 Comments

I nearly had a fit when one of my family members broke my Father's Pyrex. It was larger than the normal size one I have now . I use it and never leave it in the sink . It gets washed put away They are tough cookies but don't stand a chance around my family !
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My 'Pyrex' casserole dish exploded on first use in a moderate oven. Really pissed that the potatoes au gratin were ruined. Never buy anything for cooking that does not overtly state it is borosilicate.
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Excellent! I love stuff like this. I'm surprised you didn't include a little bit about the Moebius strip or Klein bottle, though.

In the Mandelbulb paragraph, there's a "#D" where I think you meant "3D", but that's a minor quibble. Great article!
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"...an equilateral triangle has three sides all the same length. An isosceles triangle doesn’t (the hypotenuse is longer)..."

Sorry, that's not correct, unless the isosceles triangle also just happens to be a RIGHT triangle (the hypotenuse is the side opposite of the right angle). An isosceles triangle is simply a triangle with two sides of the same length (an equilateral triangle is also an isosceles triangle, incidentally).
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Cool article.

Btw, "isosceles" just means that at least two sides of the triangle are the same length--the third could be longer, or shorter, or even the same size.

So, you could have a very wide angle between the two same-length sides (as in your spidron) or

the angle could be very narrow (think of the top part of a capital A)

or they could all be the same length--every equilateral is also isosceles.

(But *not* every isosceles triangle is equilateral--just as every square is a rectangle ie, has 4 right angles, but not every rectangle is a square.)
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The Mandelbulbs seem to be the latest trend lately in the Fractal World, just as the flame fractals and Apophysis were a couple of years ago until they were overused by these people at Deviant and their random renders (now every flame fractal looks the same - boring! With a few exceptions of course). As a Fractint fan... I still didn't find that much fun in these Mandelbulbs yet. I had more fun with the simulations of Vision of Chaos (the buckets, the ants looking for food leaving trails of pheromones and the fish vs. sharks are amazing), and its "Genetics" sections as well.
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Dear Editor, I don't know why did not you mention my name, when you mention spidrons, I was working on it for 30 years and trade marked two years ago. You can see much more on spidrons and the newest development: sphidrons
best regards, Daniel Erdély
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