Could someone explain this image of glass on a macro and micro level?

This wouldn’t happen to possibly be, say….your homework now, would it?

No, I just want to understand the photo.

The captions are mentioning those properties of the glass that are most effected by what’s going on at that length scale. I’m not sure what they are showing in the second inset.

on the 1um they are showing microscopic cracks in the glass, the one’s that you wouldn’t see with the naked eye.

The more cracks the glass has the more easily it will break, yes.

I’m not sure what the semiconduction optical means, but what is going on is the movement of electrons between the silica molecules.

On the 1µm level are they showing that the molecules are not connected together?
Is this why glass is brittle because the molecules are not connected together? and the fact it’s strong because the covalent bonds are strong.

1st inset: micro cracks. Cracks lower the fracture strength (or actually lowers the cross sectional area through which the stress applied acts, because applied stress is concentrated in spaces between cracks).

2nd inset. Looks like particle/molecule flow through the cracks. Shows that the bottle is not actually airtight. Not sure what else “flow” could be, especially at the micron to nm range.

3rd inset: molecular structure. This is the scale whose peoperties affect the listed properties: stiffness, thermal conduction. The molecular structure shows random atomic packing. Its random because glass is a mixture not a chemical compound. The different chemical componds within a glass mixture will affect properties and leads to the molecular structure you see. What is glass made of

4th inset: scale of atomic bonds and atomic packing within the structure. This scale and the properties of these bonds gives rise to semiconduction and optical properties of the glass.

So I have a few more questions I just want clarifying.

So glass’ molecular bonds are not all connected to each. So glass has randomly length bonds.
So the covalent bonds not only connect 4 oxygen atoms to 1 silicon but the covalent bonds are also holding the molecules together until it get to these breaks?

So the bonds between molecules are strong these stands of molecules are not all connected to each other and that’s what makes glass brittle?

‘Flow’ might be discussing the flow that can be induced in the glass when it is heated above the glass transition temperature.

Non-brittle solids are either metallic or structured composites. The non-directional nature of metallic bonds make it possible for dislocations to move through crystals to accomplish plastic deformation and absorb energy. Composites can tolerate internal cracking along internal interfaces and dissipate energy that way.