Why Do Drinking Glasses Break Suddenly?

  • B
  • Thread starter Kuze
  • Start date
  • Tags
    Break
In summary, the speaker had three glasses of water in their room near the window. They drank one and a half glasses and went to sleep. After 4 or 5 hours, they woke up to a loud sound and saw that one glass was broken in half and the other had some water spilled. The water was cool tap water and the room temperature was about 20 degrees Celsius. The speaker lives alone and there was no apparent cause for the glasses to break, such as a disturbance or earthquake. The speaker also mentioned that they live in a country that is not prone to earthquakes. There were not any objects or pieces of glass found on the floor or under the bed. It is possible that the glasses broke due to a defect or sleep
  • #36
I haven't seen any person ask about the detail and my self is not a profession so i don't know what i need to say and what not, if you ever have somethings you need to know in order to solve it then just ask.
 
Physics news on Phys.org
  • #37
Kuze said:
The only thing I can think about is some type of wave or sound that are in the lower or higher the human ear frequency so that I can't hear them and if that true, I would conclue that somethings can make those noise which is enough to break glass is wandering around my house.
The most significant characteristic of your “wave” hypothesis is that the influence is from a “technology” that is powerful, but remains just beyond the level of your detection or understanding. A parallel idea is the “wind farm syndrome”, believed by some to be caused by infra-sound from wind turbine blades.

The regular behaviour you described of having three glasses of water by your bed, was interrupted by the breakage of two glasses, one of which was empty, but on the same night, in a closed room. Your determination to find a simple and rational scientific answer may be explained by you taking the breakage almost as a personal assault, a violation of your space. I can understand how frustrating it must be to have no acceptable rational explanation, but you must consider that the event has only been reported once and therefore may be beyond diagnosis or resolution for the time being. You should repeat the experiment by placing the glasses in a similar situation every night. You should not worry about it unless the glasses break again.

You reported placing the glasses close to each other. How can you be so certain that the random breakage of one could not have contacted and triggered the other to crack and be discovered later?
 
  • #38
Hmm, But I really don't think that putting 2 more glasses there would be a good idea, cause maybe I'm lucky this time so it doesn't shoot those piece of glass to me when i sleep, I can wake up fast but to evade the flying piece of glass is the whole thing else, and I don't think I have anymore of those type of glass, At the present, I'm putting my glasses somewhere else than the next to window space, and it doesn't happen anymore, so I don't know that I would try to buy a couple of the same type glasses and test while watching it for the whole night cause safety should be consider first right? or putting a couple of random glasses in my house and test them out. And the temperature at my place has changed drastically, from about 35 to 21 so I think that I should consider that too. The missing piece here is the condition of those glasses before they "were" broken.
 
  • #39
You could do some experiments. You could ask a friend to spend a night on their own in your apartment with the same glasses and you could spend a night in their apartment. See if either of you get the same effect. You could video your room every night and see if you get shattering glasses. Try different glasses with different contents. The sky's the limit.
 
  • #40
Got it, But unfortunately that i might have to do it alone, I will buy a set of glasses when i have free time and setup some camera at night. I think I will do the experiment in the next friday cause I can try to observe it in the whole night and use camera in the following night.
 
  • #41
If you found something that might help, Please reply so that i can try out. And the detail will be given if they were asked.
 
  • #42
I would suspect the stressed glass solution before any other. I know that glass has to be properly tempered by a separate heating and cooling process after it's formed. Your two glasses probably came from a batch that was improperly tempered, or which accidentally may never had gotten tempered at all.
 
  • #43
maybe it was the reason but according to how long I've bought it I think that isn't the case here. Cause I bought it year ago, use it with hot water, cold water, and in all room temperature, so I think it should be something else. Cause some time the temperature change from 38 C degree to 11 C Degree but those glasses still okay.
 
  • #44
Kuze said:
maybe it was the reason but according to how long I've bought it I think that isn't the case here. Cause I bought it year ago, use it with hot water, cold water, and in all room temperature, so I think it should be something else. Cause some time the temperature change from 38 C degree to 11 C Degree but those glasses still okay.
Along with what zooby said, maybe they needed just the slightest nudge by some force, :rolleyes: check to see if any meteorites were recorded at that time around your location. Just how loud would a small sonic boom be ? and would there be an air disturbance that might cause the final breakage ?
Very unlikely, but possible...o0) :smile:

http://www.meteorites.com.au/odds&ends/sounds.html
 
  • #45
This thread is done.
 
  • Like
Likes automotiveadam7 and davenn

Similar threads

Replies
1
Views
3K
Replies
2
Views
9K
Replies
33
Views
3K
Replies
6
Views
2K
Replies
1
Views
3K
Back
Top