Researched
Glassmaking & Glassblowing
Glassblowing (about 50 BC) makes clear glass vessels cheap; glass later becomes lenses, laboratory ware and windows.
Open in the interactive tree →Glass was first melted into beads and small vessels in Mesopotamia and Egypt more than 3,000 years ago; blowing it through a pipe, invented around the 1st century BC in the Levant, let workshops make hollow vessels quickly. Clear glass made spectacles (Italy, about 1286), microscopes, telescopes, thermometers and chemical flasks possible. Optical glass is still the material behind lenses, light bulbs and fibre-optic cables.
Prerequisites
- Pottery & Ceramics~18000 BC
- Metallurgy (Bronze, Iron)~2500 BC
Unlocks
- Eyeglasses~1286
- The telescope1608Telescope lenses need clear, workable glass
- Microscope1665Microscope lenses need clear, workable glass
- Achromatic Lens (Dollond)1758
- Photography1839
- Spectroscopy1859
- Incandescent Light Bulb1879
- Optical Glass (Schott & Abbe)1884
Sources
More in Manufacturing & Construction · Antiquity
- Fired Brick~3000 BC
- Aqueducts & Public Water~312 BC
- Mortar & Roman Concrete~200 BC
- Roman Arch, Vault & Dome~126 AD