[www.schott.com...] -- On Wednesday afternoon, we visited the Schott Glass Museum, beginning with a stop at the Schott Villa. Beginning in the 1880s chemist Otto Schott developed new formulas for glass, improving its quality for use in optics. Later advances made it possible to produce stable, heat-resistant glass for household and industry. He moved to Jena to collaborate with Carl Zeiss and Ernst Abbé, contributing to the growth and importance of Jena’s local optics and pharmaceutical industries. The trio provided Jena industries with an unusual balance of scientific, commercial and social interests. We learned about the hasty evacuation of the glass company’s intellectual capital to the American sector at the end of World War II and the subsequent establishment of a new firm in West Germany. After German reunification in 1990 the daughter company in Mainz took over the parent company in Jena. The museum presents the history of glass and highlights the technological successes of the Schott Glass Company.