Suggestion for a secondary school assembly

We often think of art and science as quite separate. No doubt in the next few years you will decide whether to study the arts or the sciences.

But sometimes science is absolutely fundamental to art.There is a process called etching which makes it possible to print copies of pictures by transferring the picture onto metal, using acid to eat into the metal where the lines of the picture are to be.

Original works of art have been made for many centuries using a mixture of sand, potash, lime and chemicals such as cobalt or copper oxide.

I wonder whether any of you know what you get if you heat those together to a tremendous temperature, something like 1200 degrees? Without the chemicals you would get glass. With one of them you get coloured or stained glass.

Even as far back as the twelfth century people used stained glass to provide beautiful windows for churches. It is still used today. Science and art both have many important functions in our world - God's world. It is good to think of them coming together to provide beauty in buildings dedicated to the worship of the divine.

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