Flexible glass is a modern development that has appeared not so long ago. With the help of nanotechnology, glass has been created that can bend.
But the most interesting thing is that flexible glass first appeared thousands of years ago! Pliny the Elder wrote that at the beginning of our era a glassblower presented the emperor Tiberius with a flexible glass vessel. The master threw this vessel on the floor, but it did not break, but only deformed. The glassblower straightened the vessel with his hands, and it returned to its original shape. However, Pliny pointed out that Tiberius ordered the execution of this master, so that the prices of precious metals would not drop due to the new material, and the secret of flexible glass was taken to the grave.
But some researchers believe that the story of the execution of the glassblower is some kind of later edited version of this story, and flexible glass has been widely used in the past. And in fact - the reason why Tiberius executed the glassblower seems very far-fetched. In addition, many ancient Greek and Roman vessels have survived, which amaze with their technology, for example, the Portland vase or the Lycurgus goblet with silver nanoparticles. Perhaps some of the ancient glass vessels were made of flexible glass - it just never occurred to anyone to check this.
Natalia Trubinovskaya