Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

My son must build a glass scale model of pyramid, any ideas?

thanks Maggie

maggiebrak - If by model you mean a tetrahedron made up of 4 identical size equilateral glass triangles, that could be done. Glass poses a risk of sharp edges and points, so I question why glass? Why not clear acrylic or polycarbonate? Standard thickness window glazing material could have the edges 'fire polished' with sufficient heat, like a MAPP gas torch, but also may crack during the process. Handling hot glass is another safety concern. Clear silicone adhesive will work well to assemble it. Maybe heavy duty clear tape could be used to join the pieces as well as cover the sharp edges.

Rick Marz

Hi Rick,

Thanks, I will advise my son to first try alternatives before going with glass.The idea is to find out if a light is shone down into a glass pyramid if it will create a type of force of energy that will create a spiral of light inside the pyramid.


Maggie

maggiebrak wrote:The idea is to find out if a light is shone down into a glass pyramid if it will create a type of force of energy that will create a spiral of light inside the pyramid.

Now that you have explained the why you need it, additional construction issues that may affect the result come to mind.

If you do a little research on reflection and refraction of light and refractive index, you will soon discover that things happen at each material boundary. A solid tetrahedron will behave much differently than a hollow one with some thickness of translucent material with air inside.

I'm not sure what you mean by spiral. Mathmatically, a spiral is a smooth curved figure which means it has no sharp changes in direction. Given that light changes directions only at boundary conditions, and then sharply, the light path is not going to produce a spiral when all the boundaries are flat surfaces.

Can you provide a reference to what you are actually trying to accomplish as something obviously got lost in your description or my understanding of it?