ABSTRACT
This book is addressed to a wider range of readers than might be thought, based on its title. Its purpose is to answer the question “What is glass (or the glassy state)?” in terms of classical concepts of thermodynamics and kinetics. Such an answer pursues not only the aim of defining the notion of glass, this being treated in different ways depending on the approach and chosen criteria; but, as such, this task is not very important. Much more important in practice are the consequences of this answer, specifically: “What could and couldn’t be expected of the vitreous state, and how and within what limits can glass properties be regulated according to the specific nature of glass as a certain state of substance?” The system of such concepts is of interest to anyone who deals with glass in all of the various areas of its applications (optics, spectroscopy, opto-electronics, acoustics, building, etc.) and who is interested in the nature of the state he is dealing with. On the other hand, this book should provide useful information for those theoreticians who either develop conceptions of this state of matter or are concerned with certain physical phenomena in glassforming matrices.
