Sir Alastair Pilkington is credited with inventing the process used to create "float" glass.
That process, still widely used today for most commercial glass, produces perfectly flat, highly polished sheet glass by literally floating molten glass on a pool of molten tin.
Pilkington's success came in 1959 after years of effort working for the coincidentally named Pilkington Brothers company.
Sir Alastair Pilkington, who was knighted in 1970, died in 1995 at the age of 75.
Sir Alastair Pilkington is credited with inventing the process used to create "float" glass.