Chemists: How does sand get turned into glass?

Someone explain the chemical process that takes place that changes sand into glass. I know quartz has something to do with sand...but how do you get glass from sand?Chemists: How does sand get turned into glass?
Sand is silicon dioxide crystals, that form a structure that is regular and strong. When you heat up the crystals and the molecules that make up the original crystals then melt and become very mixed. When you cool down the liquid and freeze it the original regular structure will re-form but this time it is a single large crystal rather than many tiny crystals. That is your glass. The same thing happens with sugar, if you take granulated sugar and blast it with heat in a pan it will melt and turn brown normally called caramelisation, but that is basically a simple glass, and it is in fact what they make glass bottles out of and window panes that people jump through in films.



If you melt sand it will make a very brittle glass, in real life scientists mix the sand with other minerals and rocks in order to make a mixture that when it freezes back into the glass it has a lot more structural strength.