For millennia, glass has played an integral role in our daily lives.

People used glass to craft objects both functional and artistic dating as far back as 2000 BCE in Mesopotamia,¹ partially owing to its literal ubiquity—the most common silicate glasses consist primarily of sand. And the material’s shape versatility—it can be molded, cast, blown, cut, and flameworked, among other techniques—makes it a highly appealing medium to artists today as it was to crafters in antiquity.

But since the latter part of the 19^th century, glass found many uses beyond the artistic realm. Its structural strength and chemical versatility provided incentive to study glass and its properties through a scientific framework and to inculcate the term glass science. Through precise chemical modifications, common silicate glasses are enhanced and transformed to serve in a wide array of applications, from float glass panes used in building construction to mass-produced drink bottles to tactile devices used in today’s cell phones and electronic screens. But the multitude of structure-property relationships in glass leaves much still to study, so glass science continues to be a prolific field with impact both ordinary and revolutionary.