# A Glass that CAN NOT BE KNOCKED OVER **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [November 26, 2014, 1:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-glass-that-can-not-be-knocked-over/705666 "2014-11-26T13:50:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![DataX](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@DataX](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DataX)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2014, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-glass-that-can-not-be-knocked-over/705666/41 "2014-11-26T19:53:25Z")
The problem isn’t the glass - it is the drink - by adding some gallium to your drink - you should be able to make it so it is solid at (not too hot) room temperatures and liquid when activated by your body heat. Of course I’m guessing you wouldn’t survive very long, but that is the price you pay for progress. ---
**Author:** ![AdamF](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/adamf/32/6246_2.png) [@AdamF](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AdamF)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2014, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-glass-that-can-not-be-knocked-over/705666/42 "2014-11-26T20:03:02Z")
> [@Kamakiri](#): > > 1. My next question will involve something more along the lines of why it is necessary to buy six (6) scratch guards of iPhone, iPad, MacBook/ Macbook Pro design in order to install just one (1) that does not somehow attract a single (1) dust speck that somehow adheres to its sticky, static electric-prone surface to render even six (6) attempts to be too few even when you convert your entire bathroom into a dust-, static free zone, and why can’t I (I) get in on this incredibly lucrative, infallible business that tempts the untalented among us to actually convince ourselves that we can do these things without professional help. Your infallible business idea is doomed to fail :rolleyes:. Those clumsy enough to need a scratch guard have no hope of ever installing one. ---
**Author:** ![Tabby\_Cat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Tabby\_Cat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tabby_Cat)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2014, 1:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-glass-that-can-not-be-knocked-over/705666/43 "2014-11-27T01:48:52Z")
How about a sippy cup? ---
**Author:** ![chacoguy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/50afbb/32.png) [@chacoguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chacoguy)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2014, 2:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-glass-that-can-not-be-knocked-over/705666/44 "2014-11-27T02:07:07Z")
Bike Bottle ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2014, 2:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-glass-that-can-not-be-knocked-over/705666/45 "2014-11-27T02:13:45Z")
> [@DataX](#): > > The problem isn’t the glass - it is the drink - by adding some gallium to your drink - you should be able to make it so it is solid at (not too hot) room temperatures and liquid when activated by your body heat. I think a small amount of Xanthan gum would do a better job. It would solidify the liquid and is perfectly food-safe. Sure, you now have to _eat_ your drink, but frankly that sounds like an advantage. ---
**Author:** ![brossa](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/brossa/32/3040_2.png) [@brossa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brossa)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2014, 3:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-glass-that-can-not-be-knocked-over/705666/46 "2014-11-27T03:26:29Z")
[https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/joeborn/kangaroo-cups-plastic](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/joeborn/kangaroo-cups-plastic) full of > **[Food & Beverage Thickeners Archives - Thick-It](https://thickit.com/blog/nutrition-product-category/thickeners/)** > > Reliable, affordable, and easy-to-use, Thick-It® Original allows you to prepare your favorite homemade recipes at any temperature safely. With no added flavors, Thick-It® lets you enjoy the natural taste of your food and drinks. ---
**Author:** ![rowrrbazzle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rowrrbazzle/32/414_2.png) [@rowrrbazzle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rowrrbazzle)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2014, 5:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-glass-that-can-not-be-knocked-over/705666/47 "2014-11-27T05:04:18Z")
The glass itself doesn’t have to have a wide base. You just need something you place a glass into that has a wide base. For instance, buy lunchmeat that is packaged in a plastic tub, e.g., [Packaged Lunch Meat | Butterball](http://www.butterball.com/products/packaged-lunchmeat) . Remove cover and lunchmeat. Cut hole in cover a little wider than the glass (it doesn’t have to be snug). Replace cover. Insert glass. That should give the glass sufficient stability for your purposes. If you want a taller base, a dollar store might have some suitable container with a plastic cover. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2014, 10:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-glass-that-can-not-be-knocked-over/705666/48 "2014-11-27T22:58:43Z")
> [@Joey\_P](#): > > That would be less stable than a glass with an infinite amount of legs (a round base). I don’t think that’s necessarily correct. ---
**Author:** ![Lamar\_Mundane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/85f322/32.png) [@Lamar\_Mundane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamar_Mundane)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2014, 11:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-glass-that-can-not-be-knocked-over/705666/49 "2014-11-27T23:32:25Z")
Spaz. ---
**Author:** ![ZenBeam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/3ab097/32.png) [@ZenBeam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZenBeam)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2014, 2:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-glass-that-can-not-be-knocked-over/705666/50 "2014-11-28T02:58:22Z")
How about some vintage [-%28ca%29\_55210497035&utm\_source=gg&utm\_medium=cpc&utm\_term=\_&utm\_content=11\_main&utm\_campaign=[pla]-%28ca%29&ref=DF4rcI\_udU6GfakKSQwtHg&kpid=1976308"]uncola glasses]([https://11main.com/udderlygoodstuffantiquesandcollectibles/lot-of-3-vintage-retro-7-up-upside-down-uncola-glasses-set-soda-beverage/p/1976308?ref=DF4rcI\_udU6GfakKSQwtHg&kpid=1976308&cid=cse\_gg\_collecting-&-art\_\_](https://11main.com/udderlygoodstuffantiquesandcollectibles/lot-of-3-vintage-retro-7-up-upside-down-uncola-glasses-set-soda-beverage/p/1976308?ref=DF4rcI_udU6GfakKSQwtHg&kpid=1976308&cid=cse_gg_collecting-&-art__)[pla)? ---
**Author:** ![Tamex](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ccd318/32.png) [@Tamex](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamex)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2014, 4:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-glass-that-can-not-be-knocked-over/705666/51 "2014-11-28T04:47:37Z")
[Erlenmeyer flask?](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erlenmeyer_flask) ---
**Author:** ![cochrane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cochrane/32/10441_2.png) [@cochrane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cochrane)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2014, 5:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-glass-that-can-not-be-knocked-over/705666/52 "2014-11-28T05:02:02Z")
> [@dracoi](#): > > How about this as a simple DIY solution: take a tea cup with a saucer and glue the saucer to the bottom of the tea cup? A teacup doesn’t hold enough. The OP wants a glass that will hold in excess of a can of Coke or more than 12 oz. ---
**Author:** ![brossa](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/brossa/32/3040_2.png) [@brossa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brossa)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2014, 6:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-glass-that-can-not-be-knocked-over/705666/53 "2014-11-28T06:16:58Z")
> [@Tamex](#): > > [Erlenmeyer flask?](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erlenmeyer_flask) Enh, that’s OK if you like 'em skinny, but what you really want here is Emil Erlenmeyer’s fatbottomed cousin, Fern: [Fernbach Flask](http://www.aceglass.com/page.php?page=3879) ---
**Author:** ![Sasquatch\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8491ac/32.png) [@Sasquatch\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sasquatch_1)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2014, 11:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-glass-that-can-not-be-knocked-over/705666/54 "2014-11-28T23:54:37Z")
Here’s a design, feel free. Should work pretty well, as long as you have a ferrous/magnetic surface to stick it on. Construct a base with an array of permanent magnets pivoted on their center, with a mechanism attached to a squeeze handle so that when you grab the glass and squeeze the handle, it pivots the magnets away from up/down orientation to side to side. When you put the glass down and release it, the spring loaded handle re-orients the magnets facing down and the glass magnetically sticks to the surface. Get the benefit of magnetic holding power while using grip before lift to break the attachment, removing the “jerk” from just pulling away an attached magnet. Similar to a magnetic chuck for machining, btw, so prob not patentable, ha. ---
**Author:** ![dstarfire](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dstarfire/32/5762_2.png) [@dstarfire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dstarfire)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2014, 3:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-glass-that-can-not-be-knocked-over/705666/55 "2014-11-29T03:47:25Z")
Head for your nearest boating supply store. I’ll bet you they’ve got something that’ll ffit your needs. I know they carry coffee mugs that are are impossible to tip over (being wider at the base and narrowing towards the top). I bet they’ve got something similar that’ll hold a can of pepsi and some ice. ---
**Author:** ![Ambivalid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a5b964/32.png) [@Ambivalid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ambivalid)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2014, 4:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-glass-that-can-not-be-knocked-over/705666/56 "2014-11-29T04:05:50Z")
> [@Kamakiri](#): > > Thank you, my well-meaning feathered friend who is obviously in the last hour of his shift at the Spiffy Lube Tire and Refreshments Center at the cross street of Maple and MacArthur in Wilmington, S. Dakota who is sneaking a look at the Internet on his Pentium II running Windows 95, knowing his boss, Mr. Elkenhertz, can’t see well enough to peruse the “history” in the Mosaic browser, even though he doesn’t even know what a “history” is and anyway, would say, “Skinny,” (that’s your nickname around town) "I don’t care what you do after hours as long as you don’t book tickets for me and Annie (his niece, nothing weird going on there – his brother Petey died six years ago in a freak threshing machine accident down over at the Lamonts’ farm, where he had graciously volunteered to fill in for Willy Lamont, who was in the hospital with pneumonia at the time and, three weeks later, unfortunately succumbed even though Doctor Paley did his best but I guess it was Willy’s time anyway, and Mr. Elkenhertz was so kind as to volunteer to take care of Annie “as long as the Lord asks me to,” since his own wife Cindy died of them darn cigarettes (mesothelioma, they said even though they told you that was a miner’s disease) fourteen years ago, (just next week, I believe!) > > Thank you. > > I do appreciate your efforts to save this one person the eternal aggravation of having his goddamned glass upended; its new incarnation now sits, precariously (like you said about the only glass I’m going to trust from now on is wider at the bottom than at the top) and it’s only a matter of a tiny yocto-second before it too, joins its brothers in its time-honored quest to verify the law that Things with a Preponderance of Mass Above a Base of Lesser Preponderance of Mass Will Tend to Decay to a State in which the Two Inequalities of Mass x Time Spent Utilizing Said Object Shall Equalize, Ruining Remote Control Brand Name “X” where “X” is usually a “Samsung.” > > Thank you very much. > > Anyone else care to weigh in? Heh, I make Joke, in case it was not plain that “weigh in” had to do with the propensity of my liquid-filled vessels tend to topple, unaided except by random luck, by “weighing in” their last. Whachu talkin bout Willis? 😕 ---
**Author:** ![Crafter\_Man](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crafter_man/32/458_2.png) [@Crafter\_Man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crafter_Man)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2014, 1:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-glass-that-can-not-be-knocked-over/705666/57 "2014-12-05T01:20:41Z")
[Stemless spill-proof glass that spins on its base and doesn’t tip over.](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/food/article-2858996/New-stemless-spill-proof-Saturn-glass-spins-base-doesn-t-tip-over.html) [Link](http://superduperstudio.net/#saturn) to manufacturer. ---
**Author:** ![TruCelt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/trucelt/32/523_2.png) [@TruCelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TruCelt)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2014, 1:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-glass-that-can-not-be-knocked-over/705666/58 "2014-12-23T01:08:48Z")
[This showed up on my facebook wall toda](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3mmmxusUhpI)y. You’re welcome. ---
**Author:** ![madrabbitwoman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c37758/32.png) [@madrabbitwoman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madrabbitwoman)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2014, 10:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-glass-that-can-not-be-knocked-over/705666/59 "2014-12-23T10:27:25Z")
have you thought about using a sippy cup? ---
**Author:** ![Cartooniverse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cartooniverse/32/3084_2.png) [@Cartooniverse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cartooniverse)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2014, 11:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-glass-that-can-not-be-knocked-over/705666/60 "2014-12-23T11:41:52Z")
> [@Sicks\_Ate](#): > > Can God create a glass that not even HE can knock over with his elbow while reaching for the remote? It’s never a bad time to slip in a superb George Carlin reference. 😉 Must this be 100 percent off the shelf and ready to go, or are you willing to do a bit of MacGyver work? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-glass-that-can-not-be-knocked-over/705666.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-glass-that-can-not-be-knocked-over/705666.md?page=4)