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)
In the Mandelbulb paragraph, there's a "#D" where I think you meant "3D", but that's a minor quibble. Great article!
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).
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.)
best regards, Daniel Erdély
Daniel Erdely is in fact the originator of spidrons and some other related forms Here's his main site: http://spidron.szinhaz.org/