How Communists Made Unbreakable Glass

take a look at this beer glass it doesn't look particularly robust if anything it feels almost flimsy in your hand it's lightweight and the walls are thin let's drop it and again and again it is called zupa Fest that's German for super firm when it was invented in 1977 it was estimated to be about five times as durable as ordinary glasswar in practice it turned out to be nearly 15 times as durable this glass is basically unbreakable it's heat resistant stackable and lightweight but despite zupa fest's undeniable quality these glasses haven't been produced in over four decades the company that produced them no longer exists in fact the country that produced them no longer exists what was their secret and perhaps more importantly why aren't we all drinking from these unbreakable glasses today Fern to understand Superfest we first need to understand where it comes from it's 1949 from the rubble of world war III's Devastation and the defeat of the Nazis two new countries are born the Federal Republic of Germany in the west and the German Democratic Republic or gdr in the East the world will come to know it as East Germany East Germany has been founded under the ideals of socialism and anti-fascism and aims to promote equality and prosperity amongst the working class but throughout its 41-year existence East Germany will be a country plagued by economic hardship particularly in its early days it's been cut off from the industrial Hub in Western Germany which is much richer in natural resources as a result the gdr has to rely on expensive Imports for raw materials a lot of its industrial capacity and manufactured goods have been seized as wartime reparations and many of the factories that did exist in the region have been dismantled by Allied [Music] Forces arriving at tilb dos the kago ship irand Del brings a mixed Consignment of materials by way of reparations from Germany in these early years after the war East Germany focuses on establishing its own heavy industry until this is taken care of the production of consumer products doesn't get prioritized basic Goods like clothes and tools are often in short supply if they are available at all prices can be astronomical even food is scarse every month around 30,000 East Germans pack up and head to the West before the border closes in 1952 a heavily secured wall was built in Berlin in 1961 on the other side of the Iron Curtain West Germany's economy is recovering at a surprising speed the vft wunda or economic Miracle is elevating Western Germany far sooner than anyone expected East Germans are well aware their standards of living are lagging far behind their West German neighbors this will be an ongoing source of tension between the governing party and the workers people are increasingly Fed Up by 1953 workers Rebel what begins as a series of strikes and protests against the meager standards of living spreads into a movement throughout the country workers storm town halls and demand free elections and a reunified Germany the party turns to the Soviet Union for help and the Soviet tanks roll in to brutally squash the uprising kill dozens in an attempt to meet the workers halfway the party makes considerable efforts to improve access to consumer goods one major area of focus is in rebuilding the nation's chemical industry with a campaign operating under the catchy slogan of chemistry yields bread prosperity and Beauty the nation's chemical production is kicked into high gear in particular plastic starts to infiltrate the nation but it's not just plastic that receives a push in production by the 1970s it becomes clear that something must be done about the country's glass shortage at a festival someone makes the unthinkable fora of serving a high ranking gdr Minister beer in a paper cup drinking it from a paper cup is naturally utterly unacceptable in 1975 gdr officials task a research lab with figuring out how to improve glass it should be tougher and more resistant to sudden changes in temperature so that glasses don't need to be replaced as often as a bonus they also hope to create a successful export product an innovation that will gain worldwide respect for East Germany East German products are often ridiculed by West Germans East German cars for example are slow sputtering and cramped and gdr citizens would have to wait around 9 years to get one their West German neighbors meanwhile are zipping along the autoban and Volkswagen BMV Audi Porsche or Mercedes models and they're becoming very rich exporting them socialist production needs to gain legitimacy on the world stage could unbreakable glass be the big win East Germany needs the task is classified as a project of particular urgency and the chemists get to work inventing a successful product is not easy but you may already have have the perfect idea let's say You're really inspired by the concept of unbreakable glass and want to make your own unique coffee marks after a great campaign in which you demonstrate the undeniable superiority of your MKS and public taste tests which you totally didn't stage you've got people banging down your door for your products but damn you don't even have an online store yet this is where Shopify comes in the platform can help you build your online store whether you're just getting started or you're already a Muk Tycoon Shopify supports you at every step with just a few clicks you can create a customized and professional online store without any prior knowledge the dashboard always gives you an overview of all relevant data we personally have been using Shopify for over 4 years for our clothing brand ker catcher they have been an invaluable partner building that business you can try Shopify for free just visit shopify.com Fern and start your journey glass is all around us so much so that we don't even notice it except of course when it breaks glass has been with us for a very long time it's found in nature like the volcanic glass obsidian but we've been developing it ourselves for around 4,000 years glass is made from Sand Sand's primary constituent is silica which when melted and cooled rapidly creates an amorphous solid this means that its atoms have a disorderly Arrangement most solids are composed of orderly crystalline structures but these atoms are all over the place it's this random irregular arrangement of atoms that makes glass so breakable glass doesn't break because it's as commonly believed inherently weak glass is actually quite strong it can sometimes demonstrate strength greater than steel glass breaks because of stress it may be strong but it's a very brittle material this means that it can withstand pressure over time but it breaks easily with stress like a Sudden Impact or temperature change when stress is applied to Glass such as bending or striking The Irregular arrangement of its particles doesn't allow it to deform or stretch like a material with a regular crystalline structure would instead the particles are jled about randomly which creates space for Flaws to develop and propagate the rapid spread of cracks causes the glass to shatter into sharp fragments this tendency to shatter is the biggest drawback to Glass humans have been experimenting with ways to make glass tougher for thousands of years in the Bronze Age ancient glass makers discovered that mixing the ash of desert plants with sand could make glass more stable and workable we now know this is because of the calcium oxide also known as lime found in the desert Ash lime is also sourced in Limestone which is abundant in many places on Earth making it a relatively inexpensive additive as a result soda lime glass is still the most prevalent glass worldwide by the 1970s other methods had been developed to strengthen glass tempering it with heat or eleminating it between sheets of plastic for example but these methods are energy intensive or not good at keeping glasswar thin and transparent the East German scientists are looking to produce glass strong stronger than your standard still rather breakable soda lime glass but on the cheap after a couple years of studying glass they experiment with iron exchanging a process that had been discovered in the mid 19th century until this point it was used mostly for military applications ion exchange involves heating ordinary glass and bathing it in a potassium nitrate solution which temporarily melts the outer layer of the glass this allows larger prote potassium ions to move into the glass and crowd out the smaller sodium ions potassium ions needing more space exert pressure on their neighboring atoms this creates a strong layer of tension that prevents crackage a first line of defense for stresses that would normally break the glass with the ions having less space to be jled about there's less space for Flaws to develop the ion exchange method Works beautifully the scientists modestly predict this new new glasswar will be five times more durable than ordinary soda lime glass in practice it's up to 15 times less breakable by the late '70s the party orders for this new glass to be produced on Mass restaurants all over East Germany buy up zupa Fest glasses until nobody needs to buy anymore they are sorted for years to come because the glasses almost never break nowadays the glasses you find in restaurants and bars worldwide aren't even closed to the same quality due to breakage the typical bar replaces anywhere from 50 to 100% of its glass wear every single year replacing glasswar is a significant expense for any gastro business by the 80s East Germany is in glass over production and there's a surplus of Superfest the company patents it hoping to sell it on the European market the Council of ministers is counting on Z Fest to bring in 3.7 million deuta marks per here but there's just one problem they can't find any buyers they commission West German sales representative aahad Pok to spread the gospel of their Superior new product poke is blown away by super fest's quality he's convinced he'll sell Superfest super fast East Germany arms him with more than a dozen models from beer to shot glasses and sends him off to international trade shows poke has got connections to the biggest names in glass production including Coca-Cola he eagerly demonstrates zup fest's quality with the Zeal of a True Believer but nobody cares he doesn't sell a single cup as he recalls it Coca-Cola reps say why should we use glass that won't break we earn money with our glasses other glass dealers tell him why should we saw off the branch we're sitting on the problem with Z fast glasses is that they are just too good the values that guided its production are not the values that guide most manufacturing they're entering a market where disposability often trumps durability a profit motive can incentivize businesses to create products with planned obsolescence plannned obsolescence is the design of products with an intentionally limited shelf life so that consumers will buy the product over and over again it's a controversial but very effective business practice for example light bulbs that never break have existed for more than a 100 years but in the 1920s a cartel of light bulb producers made sure to never produce anything lasting more than a, hours once the balloon Wall fell and the gdr dissolved zup Fest 2 ended in 1991 it shut its Factory for good collectors still hoard crates of the glass glasses or sell them on eBay there are restaurants and bars throughout Eastern Germany that use the same zupa Fest glasses they bought 40 years ago to this day though planned obsolescence is not the whole story for super fest's disappearance it was also just ahead of its time major US manufacturer Corning Glass experimented with hardening glass with ion Exchange in the 60s independently from what was happening in the gdr a bit later and when they realized how strong it was they thought like the East Germans that they had hit the jackpot they pitched their glass to companies that make foam boovs car windshields and prism windows at first there was interest but sales were slow Corning was charging a lot for the glass most of the potential buyers ultimately went back to using laminated glass as they had been since the 1930s corning's upgraded glass just wasn't worth it to them so the hardened glass got sheld for decades that is until 2007 when Steve Jobs approaches Corning with help in creating the iPhone he needs a glass that's thin transparent and as unlikely to shatter as possible and that's how chemically hardened glass is most widely used today in the screens of billions of electronic devices worldwide they call it Gorilla Glass the story of zupa Fest does make you wonder how many products around us are worse than they have have to be

Channel: fern

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Id: vEvBpjCOBu0

Length: 15min 1sec (901 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 30 2024