Why glass is not mineral or organized structure ?

Raghubeer rai Best Answer

first thing before knowing why glass is not mineral we should focus what is the exact definition of mineral. A mineral, by definition, should have the foloowing properties 1-Naturally occuring 2-Inorganic substance 3-Homogenous composition 4-Repeating crystal structure. just focus on last two properties what it tells to us ? Homogeneous" refers to a substance that is consistent or uniform throughout its volume,which is directly related to some particular arrangements of atoms in some fixed position (like as A after that B .... and repeated throughout the structure which tells about point 4 means structure are repeating like one after that another atoms) now the second thing is what is crystalline structure so it can be defined as " an ordered array of atoms, ions or molecules".Crystal Structure is obtained by attaching atoms, groups of atoms or molecules. This structure occurs from the intrinsic nature of the constituent particles to produce symmetric patterns. means this all atoms will arranged in particular manner not in random manner (just like seat wherever you want ) and due to arranged in particular manner(like in a column one atoms after that another and in row too)it gives some symmetry patterns (means by seeing the structure we can tell,here pattern of ABC ABC followed,just like this) . but in case of glass it doesn't satisfy any criteria of mineral to be called as mineral most imp thing it doesn't have crystalline structure (means atoms arrangements in specific manner) ,atoms are arranged in random manner and doesn't doesn't produce symmetry . now the ans of your main question why it doesn't show crystalline structure , the ans is as we know glass formed by quenching of magma means magma cool very fastly (rapid manner)and the result is the cooling glass molecules “freeze” their thermal motion(focus on this ,if thermal motion of molecules get stopped so it will settle down anywhere probably at the place where thermal motion stopped) which prevents them from attaining a crystallized form. we can also say that as the cooling happening so fast ,the glass molecules clump together as they cool, which produces the same result – a non-crystalline structure.