It’s not every day a product invented in the early 1960’s becomes a massive source of profit 45 years after the fact, but here we are. There’s a super-strong glass invented in 1962 by Corning engineers as part of Project Muscle. The project’s goal was to find a glass as strong as steel, and their greatest success was Chemchor, which is three times as strong as glass, flexible, scratch-resistant, and incredibly difficult to break. The product then sat around for decades until the rise of electronics; now Corning’s newly-renamed Gorilla Glass is key to just about every MP3 player and touch-screen device on the planet.
It’s estimated that by 2015, Gorilla glass will be Corning’s second-biggest source of business. It’s already the glass of choice for smart phones like Motorola’s Droid (who uses Gorilla glass) and notebooks; with the rise of e-readers and netbooks and other ultraportable devices, it’s only a matter of time before this glass becomes even more important to Corning’s bottom line, and as such they’ve refitted their entire manufacturing facility in Harrodsburg, Kentucky, and they’re converting another facility in Shizuoka, Japan, to pump out the modern marvel!
Tags: Corning, Gorilla glass, super-strong glass, chemical glass three times stronger than normal glass, scratch-resistant glass, engineering, glass invented in 1962 becomes useful, engineering, Chemchor, weird science, technology
