Explanation:QA: “What is ordinary glass made of ?”
Glass is mostly silica, or silicon dioxide, present as quartz in many types of sand. Pure silica forms a highly transparent glass, but has a very high melting or softening temperature, around 1700°C. Even at such high temperatures it is highly viscous and difficult to work. Its use is largely confined to applications requiring high transparency to ultra-violet and infra-red radiation, stability at elevated temperatures or low thermal expansion coefficient.
“Ordinary glass” windows and drinking vessels are typically made from soda-lime glass, containing silica with around 25% sodium, calcium and other oxides, which together reduce the softening temperature to roughly 500–600°C
