Sir Alastair PilkingtonBorn 7 Jan 1920; died 5 May 1995 at age 75. Sir Lionel Alexander Bethune Pilkington was a British industrialist and inventor who invented the float glass process, practical for industry, which replaced the former method for making plate glass. He developed his idea from the mid-1950s and announced it to the public in 1959. It took three years longer to reach consistent, profitable production In 1962, the process was licenced for use in the USA, followed shortly by the rest of the world. Flat glass with brilliant, parallel surfaces was manufactured from a continuous ribbon of molten glass moving out of the furnace and floating on a long bed of molten tin. While on this bed, the glass remained hot for a long enough time for irregularities to smooth out, eliminating the need for later polishing. He was knighted in 1970.« |
