Gordon Scott Fulcher: Renaissance Man of Glass Science

To a glass scientist, the name Fulcher conjures images of viscosity vs. temperature diagrams for glass-forming liquids. Indeed, Gordon Fulcher’s seminal 1925 publication, in which he proposed his three-parameter model of viscosity, is one of the most significant and influential papers ever published in the field of glass science. Fulcher developed this equation during the early part of his 14-year career at Corning Glass Works (1920-1934). However, Fulcher’s work in viscosity represents a small fraction of his highly diverse and accomplished career, which included pioneering the field of electrocast ceramics and developing the modern system of scientific abstracting that it still in use today. Fulcher also had a keen interest in social and economic problems, and his latter research focused heavily on the field of metacognition, i.e., the process of thinking

Two factors governing fragility: Stretching exponent and configurational entropy

We derive an analytical expression showing that the fragility of a supercooled liquid is a result of (i) a thermodynamic term depending on change in configurational entropy and (ii) a kinetic term depending on change in the nonexponentiality or “stretching” of the relaxation function, as quantified by the exponent β of the Kohlrausch-Williams-Watts (KWW) relaxation function. Our expression indicates that there is not a direct correlation between the non-Arrhenius scaling of liquid viscosity and the nonexponential nature of glassy relaxation. Rather, the temperature dependence of the stretching exponent β provides a lower limit for fragility, which can be increased through changes in the configurational entropy. Our result explains the apparent contradiction between those researchers showing a correlation between β and fragility and those who question such a correlation due to the spread of the data