PureBasic Forums - English

Code: Select all

On the morning of January 4, 2016 I discovered that something very unusual had occurred in my home while I slept peacefully with my wife in my bed.
Neither myself nor my wife remember hearing any unusual noises during the night.
I had been up late the previous night working until about 2:00 AM on a computer program.
This is the same room where the incident occurred.

I awoke approximately 9:00 AM, got dressed, used bathroom, the usual stuff.
A short while later I went into the room where I had my workbench and computer setup.
I went in with the intention of turning on the computer in preparation to continue working on my program.
I was shocked to see that there was broken glass all over the floor, not just a little bit but lots of it scattered over a wide area.
My first thought was that the cats (we have two) had somehow broken something during the night.
I was really mystified for a while as to where the glass had come from or what it had been before it was broken.
I eventually identified the source of the glass.

At the end of my workbench tucked back under the bench top along the end I have a set of wooden drawers.
Located on top of the drawers I had placed two pieces of heavy flat glass panes for storage in an out of the way safe location.
These two glass panes I have had for many years and kept stored in this location.
They were originally removed from the front of old television sets that were probably built back in the 1950s.
The  glass panes were very thick and heavy, measuring about 17 inches by 22 inches.
There was only a very narrow gap between the glass and the bottom of the workbench.
I see no way that anything could have fallen and struck the glass.

Here is where the story gets really strange.
As I mentioned there were two pieces of glass stacked one on top of the other.
One of the pieces of glass was broken, completely shattered actually, and the other piece was intact and unharmed.
Guess which piece was broken, It was the one on the bottom of the stack, sandwiched between the upper piece of glass and the top of the drawers.
Judging from the pattern on the surrounding floor area the glass must have exploded outward radially from underneath the top piece.
A few of the pieces had actually been thrown entirely out of the room and were lying on the hallway carpet.
I would judge that approximately 50% of the bottom piece of glass was entirely thrown clear of it pre-explosion location.
The remaining bits were still trapped between the upper glass pane and the top of the drawers.

It took me more than an hour to clean up the mess.
I only managed to cut myself once before I put on a pair of gloves.
I noticed that there were no large pieces intact.
The largest were about the size of my hand and they were completely cracked through and would crumble easily with the slightest pressure.
A small amount of the glass that had been trapped under the upper intact piece was reduced nearly to a fine powder.
I picked up as many pieces as I could by hand and placed them inside an empty cereal box.
It was nearly full and very heavy when I was finished.
A thorough vacuum job took care of the rest of the cleanup.

So what could have caused this unusual happening?
I have only one weak hypothesis with no supporting evidence.

If the glass had somehow become strongly adhered to the top of the wooden drawer cabinet and if the wood were to expand or contract the resulting build-up of force might have caused the glass to shatter violently.
The problem is I have no explanation as to why the glass would stick that strongly to the wood.
During cleanup the broken pieces brushed away easily, there was no evidence they were stuck in any way.
The surface of the wood was dry and smooth without any unusual markings.
The wood had a polyurethane finish that was applied back in 1974 as a high school wood shop project.