burning glass

(redirected from Burning-glass)
Also found in: Dictionary, Wikipedia.

burning glass

a convex lens for concentrating the sun's rays into a small area to produce heat or fire

Collins Discovery Encyclopedia, 1st edition © HarperCollins Publishers 2005

burning glass

[′bər·niŋ ‚glas]

(optics)

A converging lens used to produce intense heat by converging the rays of the sun on a small area.

Mentioned in ?

chemistry

References in classic literature ?

He followed the Himalaya-Thibet road, the little ten-foot track that is blasted out of solid rock, or strutted out on timbers over gulfs a thousand feet deep; that dips into warm, wet, shut-in valleys, and climbs out across bare, grassy hill-shoulders where the sun strikes like a burning-glass; or turns through dripping, dark forests where the tree-ferns dress the trunks from head to heel, and the pheasant calls to his mate.

View in context

The sun strikes upon our heads at this open window, as though its rays were concentrated through a burning-glass; but the day is in its zenith, and the season an unusual one.

View in context

- like living, they tell me, on a sand-heap, underneath a burning-glass! He looked strong, but he wasn't.

View in context

I then questioned the Mummy about burning-glasses and lenses, and, in general, about the manufacture of glass; but I had not made an end of my queries before the silent member again touched me quietly on the elbow, and begged me for God's sake to take a peep at Diodorus Siculus.