Dark Crystal: The Secrets of Swarovski | Hacker News Reader

Dark Crystal: The Secrets of Swarovski

atlasobscura.com

35 pointsrshrsh36 comments

Submarine advertising? http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html

"Swarovski, who celebrates its 120-year anniversary this year, is a steward of a centuries-old Bohemian tradition, making use of natural resources in the Czech Republic and Austria. It’s a phenomenally innovative design studio and an impressively creative chemical laboratory, all in one. And, of course, it’s the beneficiary of absolutely genius marketing."

Patting themselves on the back much? :-)

Yea, this piece reeks of it...

"What makes Swarovski’s crystals better than its competitors? It’s all about brilliance."

"well-cut diamond is always going to have more fire and more brilliance than a glass crystal,” says Walker. But that, really, is debatable, and also flexible: there’s only so much you can do to a diamond, but a synthetic material like Swarovski crystal has no limits."

Wow, no limits! They should stop making pretty baubles and use their limitless technology to build the containment for a cheap fusion reactor or something.

This one is so blatant maybe it would be supermarine advertising.

And posted by the HN user whose only purpose is posting the atlasobscura links.

> glass is a particular type of liquid ...

No, it's not a liquid.

> ... so its internal structure is all a jumble

That's true. But it doesn't flow, which is a rather significant part of being liquid.

Went on a double date with another guy who was a PhD chemist. He made an offhanded remark about glass being a liquid, and trotted out that saw about ancient cathedral windows being thicker at the bottom.

I explained that that was actually untrue, and explained the crown glass method, and that a small percentage of those panes are thicker at the top. He just gave me this scornful glance and said "I've got a doctorate in chemistry, I think I know a little bit more about this than you do." I was so mad! No, dingus, you don't. You study membranes, and you've never read anything about glass. But I didn't want to start a fight, so I had to just let it go.

I remember being taught that glass was a liquid in high school (early 90s) and they referenced antique glass being thicker at the bottom as an example. So I was fascinated by that and thought it was true for the longest time. :/

Some interesting reading regarding that urban myth and the actual science:

http://dwb.unl.edu/Teacher/NSF/C01/C01Links/www.ualberta.ca/...

That's interesting. I was also taught glass is a liquid.

We should correct people when they say it's a liquid OR a solid, because neither is correct; but I think we should not be so critical/furious if someone calls glass a supercooled liquid, etc. (ref: Tamman "frozen super-cooled liquid", the article: "a particular type of liquid").

Calling it an "amorphous solid" is obviously the currently accepted formal physicist category of course.

That's really a no-win argument. There's really nothing to gain, and you run the risk of looking like a jerk who has to correct everyone and can't accept being wrong in front of your date. Letting it go is the best answer, IMO.

The (scientist approved) test for determining basic matter phases is very rudimentary. Put the object/quantity in question in a can. Does it fill the whole space of the can, no matter what size can you use? Then it's a gas. Does it fill just the bottom of the can? Then it's a liquid. Does it instead retain its shape? Then it's a solid.

The urban legend says that it's like pitch; if you put it in the can, it will slowly fill the bottom of the can, but it will take many centuries since it flows so slowly.

This is not true, but it means your test would not convince anybody of anything.

It should be convincing, because the test specifies a time limit in the range of a couple of minutes.

I interpreted that as they meant "amorphous solid" because they said it was not crystalline. But calling it a liquid if that's what they meant is a bit...wrong.

there is physics and there is language (and sometimes the twain shall meet). does normal glass flow at room temperature and typical earth gravity? nah. do glasses flow at some temperatures? who would deny it? so glasses are possessed of liquid properties. your non-crystalline statement is the properly important one (in my humble opinion), and it essentially defines what a glass is. and as a sibling commenter here states the thicker glass in panes in old buildings is probably a statistical phenomenon, or just possibly represents a glazer's choice, rather than anything to do with chemistry or physics or holders of phds, (by the bye, from experience, if a phd requires you to add a "Dr" to their name, that's a pretty good test of jerkhood (jerkship?))

http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/swarvoski-cryst...

SNL skit that is both hilarious and very relevant to this article. "Crystals are light and 50 dollars, plus they're diamonds"

Because he didn't use crappy popup windows.

Disable Javascript, then only enable it where you need it - where a site is broken or something isn't working correctly.

Some combination of uBlock and Ghostery prevented this for me.

Ghostery + httpseverywhere did the same for me.

So I'm assuming this is a slightly different glass than Soda-lime glass[1]. Maybe something closer to borosilicate glass[2]? Indeed there are many materials that can make glass.

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soda-lime_glass

[2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyrex#Composition

When I was a kid, a neighbor down the street had a house full of these, they had lived in Germany while working for the US Army.

Apparently Pyrex is no longer borosilicate.

aren't pyrex and swarovski just patented 'recipes' for making glass?

Patents run out. Swarovski presumably is keeping it as a trade secret, which is riskier but probably far more profitable in the long run (especially if they've managed to keep the core secrets this long).

without their amazing marketing ability, having the same glass really isnt that useful, so i guess trade secret does make more sense in this light.

In the US, apparently, there's a new and cheaper Pyrex that's ordinary tempered glass. Elsewhere, it still the good stuff: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyrex

The article also mentions soda-lime Pyrex® products from the '30s. ‘Pyrex’ has been nothing more than a brand name for a long, long time.

So it's fake, it contains lead, and it's sponsoring shaddy adverts in the net.

When looking at Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Swarovski) I got some (possibly) conflicting information - that he was Jewish and an avowed Nazi party member. Especially given that some of the last edits looks unencyclopedic - could anyone more knowlegeble look at it and fix it? (I have tried to look at German Wikipedia and there was reference to Nazi party but not to Jewish roots, so the former looks more plausible.)

There were people of Jewish descent that served in Wehrmacht, including in pretty high positions[1]. The service also protected from some of the anti-Jewish abuse initially, and some people of Jewish descent both felt much more connection to German service (even after Nazis took over it) than their Jewish roots, and were too useful, so Goering was noted to say "I am deciding who is Jewish and who is not". Also there's the case of Werner Goldberg[2], a son of Jewish father and non-Jewish mother, who was lauded by Nazi press as the "Ideal German Soldier". Ironically, Goldberg's looks proved to be so irresistible that recently he was featured on the monument to the "Defenders of the Motherland" in Russia. [3]

So, in principle, there's nothing impossible for a person to be both of Jewish descent and a Nazi sympathizer. Stranger things have happened.

[1] http://www.jewishmag.com/158mag/hitler_jewish_soldiers/hitle...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Werner_Goldberg

[3] http://znak.com/tumen/news/2015-06-26/1041938.html

I am not saying its not impossible, but that unlikely things need strong backing (as of now, Wikipedia links to a single newspaper article on this matter).

This looks fairly inaccurate. Right now on this page:

"The Swarovskis ran their crystal business, generation after generation, doing moderately well until WWII. How they have weathered WWII when almost all the other Austrian Jews were handed over, well, no information on that either. Some reckon that it’s most likely because optical lenses were important for the war effort, and Swarovski made the best."

the german version doesn't tell much more.

practically: "the swarovski family were avowed national socialists. swarovski joined the NSDAP before the annex when the party was still illegal."

the references though! there is one longer article titled: "in line with the NSDAP: the swarovski business in the time of national socialism".

there's no mention of him being of jewish origin neither in the german version of the wikipedia page nor in the referenced article.

So I reverted this edit.

"Glass is more like a popsicle."

I always thought it is just glass...

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