What is a Prince Ruperts Drop?
A Prince Rupert’s Drop is a very intriguing glass curiosity which exhibits a number of unusual properties. These glass oddities are also known as Dutch tears, Batavia’s tears, Tzar’s tears, or Prince Rupert’s balls, and they are often on display in glass museums. The precise nature of the Prince Rupert’s Drop was a mystery for some time; only after the development of high speed video did people really understand what was going on when a Prince Rupert’s Drop was broken. To make a Prince Rupert’s Drop, a small piece of molten glass is dropped into a bucket of extremely cold water while the glass is still hot. The glass forms a characteristic tear-drop shape, with a fat head and a long, curving tail. The cold water causes the outside of the glass to cool extremely quickly, while the hot glass inside the head takes longer to cool. As it cools, it contracts, and creates a state of tension in the Prince Rupert’s Drop. No matter how hard you try, you cannot break the head of a Prince Rupert’s
