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Take a look out your window, put on your glasses if you wear them.
向窗外張望一下，有必要的話，戴上眼鏡。
You might want to grab a pair of binoculars, too, or a magnifying lens.
也許你還想拿副望遠鏡或是放大鏡。
Now, what do you see?
現在，你看到了什么
Well, whatever it is, it's not the multiple layers of glass right in front of you.
無論你看到了什么答案，都可能不是那一層層近在咫尺的玻璃。
But have you ever wondered how something so solid can be so invisible?
但是你是否想知道，為什么有如此固態的東西卻看不見呢？
To understand that, we have to understand what glass actually is, and where it comes from.
要明白這點，我們首先要知道玻璃究竟是什么，以及它是怎樣形成的。
It all begins in the Earth's crust, where the two most common elements are silicon and oxygen.
所有一切都始于地殼在它其中最基本的兩種元素：硅和氧。
These react together to form silicon dioxide, whose molecules arrange themselves into a regular crystalline form known as quartz.
它們相互作用形成二氧化硅，二氧化物的分子自動排列形成晶體狀物，被稱為石英。
Quartz is commonly found in sand, where it often makes up most of the grains and is the main ingredient in most type of glass.
石英通常在沙中被發現，沙大多由顆粒組成，而顆粒是多數玻璃的主要原料。
Of course, you probably noticed that glass isn't made of multiple tiny bits of quartz, and for good reason
當然，你可能注意到玻璃并不是由許多石英粒組成的，這點顯而易見。
For one thing, the edges of the rigidly formed grains and smaller defects within the crystal structure reflect and disperse light that hits them
一方面，晶體結構內部嚴格形成的顆粒邊緣或者很小的瑕疵反射及散射照向它們的光。
But when the quartz is heated high enough the extra energy makes the molecules vibrate until they break the bonds holding them together and become a flowing liquid, the same way that ice melts into water.
但是當石英加熱到足夠熱時，產生的熱量就會讓分子產生震動直到它們打破以前的鏈結，進而形成流動的液體，就和冰融化成水一樣。
Unlike water, though, liquid silicon dioxide does not reform into a crystal solid when it cools
但是和水不同的是，液態的二氧化硅冷卻之后不會形成固態晶體。
Instead, as the molecules lose energy, they are less and less able to move into an ordered position, and the result is what is called an amorphous solid.
相反，當分子失去能量后，它們就更不太可能移動形成一個有秩序的狀態，這樣的結果就是人們所說的非晶型固體。
A solid material with the chaotic structure of a liquid, which allows the molecules to freely fill in any gaps.
一種具有混亂液體結構的固態物質使得分子可以自由填補任何縫隙。
This makes the surface of glass uniform on a microscopic level, allowing light to strike it without being scattered in different directions.
這樣就讓玻璃表面在微觀層面上是一致的，光可以穿透它但不會散射出去。
