Microscopes, telescopes and lenses. Smartphones, laptops and televisions. Mirrors, windshields and cathedral windows.

None would be possible without glass.

It’s made of silicon dioxide, or quartz, that’s melted and then cooled so fast that crystals can’t form, which gives glass its most important quality today: transparency.

But glass was first valued for the way it breaks. Early humans found naturally occurring glass— from volcanoes or when a meteor superheated desert sand—and used its broken shards to cut things or make weapons.

Not too much later, humans learned to melt sand to make glass. They added metal salts to make different colored glass for jewelry and to adorn metalwork. Soon, different cultures were blowing glass to make colored plates and vessels.

But it wasn’t until the industrial age that glass assumed today’s roles. Transparent, inert, sanitary, and weatherproof, glass made windowpanes, bottles and jars, chemical beakers and electrical insulators. Each year, its uses expanded.

Using complex manufacturing and exotic additives, modern glass can withstand bullets or atmospheric reentry; form supersharp microscopic blades; make fibers that can be woven into building insulation; and so much more.

Clearly, our lives would be pretty dull without glass.