soft glass
- noun
- Specialized
:
vidrio suave
- Some concentrated emulsions behave like a soft glass and slowly relax after deformation.
Examples
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The team observed aging in a sample of soft glass after repeated shear cycles.
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Physicists model how soft glass flows under stress in colloidal suspensions.
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What is soft glass?
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The soft glass samples must be handled carefully.
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Physicists model how soft glass flows under stress in colloidal suspensions.
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Some concentrated emulsions behave like a soft glass and slowly relax after deformation.
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The team observed aging in a sample of soft glass after repeated shear cycles.
How Soft
- Specialized
31
3.9
Surface Forms
Morphology
The phrase is partially compositional: a B1 learner who knows 'soft' and 'glass' can infer a glass-like material that is soft, so there is a transparent core. However, the specific scientific sense (an amorphous, glassy solid with slow relaxation, aging, and yielding) is technical and not fully predictable from everyday senses of the words, so prior subject-matter knowledge is needed.
Etymology
Soft glass in physics uses the image of tiny, crowded particles that are stuck like a hard glass but slowly flow like thick jam when pushed, so the material looks solid yet moves very slowly. That's why scientists call such materials 'soft glass'.