DrBacchus' Journal

I can't answer for the shattering without provocation, but I can speak to the continual shattering.
I was present when someone threw a small pebble and accidentally struck the glass on a movie poster case. The pebble was quite small, and did not do much damage on the knockthrough, but did cause several cracks in the glass. These cracks propigated through the remainder of the glass over the course of the next half hour until it had shattered into the small pieces safety glass is designed to make. All the while the glass shards stayed together in the pane, until the individual who caused this rather beautiful display knocked the pane out so that he could clean up the glass as best he could. Even then, what shards remained were still trying to crack into safety glass quasi-cubes.
Therefore, I'd suspect that the corn popping effect is simply a trait of safety glass. Might the initial spontaneous shattering have also been related, like a manufacturing defect?

As Moose said via trackback, we had a similar experience with a pinball machine glass cover. Safety glass is designed to shatter into small non-sharp pieces. I guess it is unstable when shattered and continues to pop apart for a while. I guess the convection or uneven cooling caused it to break apart. It was quite strange to watch and very loud on the initial crack.

I have also had a strange experience with glass. I am a student and was sitting in my english class one day, when a glass that had been filled with water for several days spontaneously shattered,imploded even. nothing had hit it at all.

I have had two experiences with exploding glass. The fist happened in a gym. I was on a stationary bike staring ahead at 3 empty squash ball courts. Suddenly the middle court's entire glass front shattered into tiny pieces. It sounded like a gunshot. Everyone was astonished that it had happened since there was no one in the vacinity. I was the closest at 5 feet away on a bike. The second experience happened today. I own two pinball machines (Torpedo Alley - 1988 Data East, and The Getaway High Speed II - 1991 Williams). Today I removed the safety glass top of the Data East Machine to look at the playfield. After I had set the glass on the floor and started to stand up it shattered. I had already let the glass go and it was stable, but it shattered anyway. Several of the pieces managed to fly all over the room. Some as far as ten feet away. And although safety glass is disigned to shatter into small pieces, the pieces are still sharp - I received several small cuts to my arms and legs since I was wearing shorts and a tee-shirt. I even had a small shard sticking out of my cheak. Not sure what caused it to break, but now I'm in the market for a new glass top for my machine.

Last wednesday night, i had a friend over. while we were sitting in another room, we heard a shattering from the kitchen area. we looked all over the house, and found nothing. today, my husband opened the kitchen cabinet where we keep our drinking glasses and found shattered glass all around them on the floor of the shelf. none of the other glasses were broken, and there was no one near the cabinet or kitchen at the time of explosion. the house was about 68 degrees. any ideas?