Chemists were also able to bend glass tubes within the laboratory with the aid of only a blowtorch and to construct complex chemical equipment such as distillation vessels and gas-tight containers much more easily. Gases could be collected, liquids controlled, chemical reactions allowed to do whatever they liked. Glass equipment is the workhorse of the chemist’s world—so much so that every professional chemical lab has a glass blower in residence. How many Nobel Prizes did this material make possible? How many modern inventions started life in a test tube?
