(This question is about non-tempered glass.)
I broke my favorite glass (tumbler) today, dropping it in my (ceramic) sink while trying to refill it. :(
I'm kind of a klutz - that's far from the first time I've dropped that glass in that sink. However, there was nothing different this time from all the other times. It's never gotten chipped, either (AFAIK).
It did get me curious, though. When some particular glass object is dropped a lot of times, which of the following is true?
- Something invisible (at least to the naked eye) in the structure "degrades" each time, gradually weakening it, and eventually it becomes so weak that it breaks
- It doesn't change at all as long as it doesn't break - there's just a random chance for it to break each time (e.g. based on the exact angle it collides at), so you could get unlucky and break a brand new glass
I suspect it's the first, since whenever I break something in a situation like this, it always seems to be something I've had for years and grown rather attached to, rather than something brand new that I could just replace like-for-like right away.
What actually happens on the inside when glass hits something hard?
