For some reason, on Chrome, the linked article is teeny (text is completely unreadable).
Anyway - it's funny how some of the best discoveries are accidental. I don't know anything about Don Stookey, but I'm guessing this played a large part of his induction into the inventor's hall of fame. But he didn't really do anything, he didn't set out to make the next best glass, but he accidentally did. Usually hall of fames are for decided effort to do something awesome (like a baseball hall of fame, you need some luck, but its a lot of skill and practice).
I've been wondering lately about the sheer number of cracked iPhone 4/4S/ will be 5 screens. If this glass is so great, why does it break so frequently from small heights? Does the metal casing around it transfer the blunt of the force to the glass and make it crack? I haven't seen too many other phones with cracked screens, would a plastic casing surrounding the glass absorb some of the fall?
I think what you are missing out, is that this invention came about from hard work, lots of experiments, and recognizing what he had on his hands when he saw it:
"Don Stookey knew he had botched the experiment. One day in 1952, the Corning Glass Works chemist placed a sample of photosensitive glass inside a furnace and set the temperature to 600 degrees Celsius. At some point during the run, a faulty controller let the temperature climb to 900 degrees C. Expecting a melted blob of glass and a ruined furnace, Stookey opened the door to discover that, weirdly, his lithium silicate had transformed into a milky white plate. When he tried to remove it, the sample slipped from the tongs and crashed to the floor. Instead of shattering, it bounced."
"It was a fortuitous accident: in his laboratory in the basement of St. Mary's Hospital in London (now part of Imperial College), Fleming noticed a Petri dish containing Staphylococcus plate culture he mistakenly left open, was contaminated by blue-green mould, which formed a visible growth. There was a halo of inhibited bacterial growth around the mould. Fleming concluded the mould released a substance that repressed the growth and lysing the bacteria. He grew a pure culture and discovered it was a Penicillium mould, now known to be Penicillium notatum."
"It was initially studied for use in hypertension and angina pectoris. The first clinical trials were conducted in Morriston Hospital in Swansea. Phase I clinical trials under the direction of Ian Osterloh suggested that the drug had little effect on angina, but that it could induce marked penile erections."
Had someone not been paying close attention, Viagra would have died at phase I.
> would a plastic casing surrounding the glass absorb some of the fall?
Almost certainly. As you noted, the ratio of broken screens seems to be much higher on the 4/4S. I've got a 3GS than I've dropped many times, a few times onto concrete. The glass is still pristine, because the plastic absorbed the impact (and has scratches and small dents to show it).
Anyway - it's funny how some of the best discoveries are accidental. I don't know anything about Don Stookey, but I'm guessing this played a large part of his induction into the inventor's hall of fame. But he didn't really do anything, he didn't set out to make the next best glass, but he accidentally did. Usually hall of fames are for decided effort to do something awesome (like a baseball hall of fame, you need some luck, but its a lot of skill and practice).
I've been wondering lately about the sheer number of cracked iPhone 4/4S/ will be 5 screens. If this glass is so great, why does it break so frequently from small heights? Does the metal casing around it transfer the blunt of the force to the glass and make it crack? I haven't seen too many other phones with cracked screens, would a plastic casing surrounding the glass absorb some of the fall?